Turismo e desenvolvimento: uma compreensão das racionalidades e dimensões de sustentabilidade na trilha dos Santos Mártires das Missões/RS

Abstract

Tourism is a tool for valuing communities, however if it is not carried out consciously, it can prejudice the environment, as well as harm the permanence of future generations. In this aspect, sustainable development presents itself as a viable alternative, it is necessary to understand the rationalities that guide the social action of individuals, and that directly influence the performance of organizations that operate in this environment. Therefore, the general objective of this paper is to understand the relationship between tourism and sustainable development, from the expression of the rationalities of the actors in the tourist route of Trilha dos Santos Mártires das Missões/RS (TSMM), in the period from 2001 to 2021. Firstly, the contextualization of the TSMM is carried out from its historical, religious and ecological principles, seeking to understand the participation of its actors, identifying the characteristics of instrumental and substantive rationalities, and also the specificities of the Trail that bring it closer to a sustainable tourist product and, finally, to establish relationships between the rationalities expressed by the actors of the Trail as a tourist route, and the dimensions of sustainability. The methodological approach of the research was phenomenological, classified as qualitative and descriptive. The data collection occurred through document analysis, interviews with 21 (twenty-one) TSMM participants, who were distributed into 10 interest groups, and also a participant observation, carried out during the 20th and 21st edition of the Trail that took place in November 2021. The present study made use of the triangulation of sources of evidence, to understand the facts analyzed and to support the analysis of qualitative data Atlas TI9 software was used. It was from the interviewed manifestation that the presence of instrumental and substantive rationalities was identified in the eleven organizational processes observed. It identified the predominance of substantive rationality, common in third sector organizations, above all there were instrumental manifestations in several rubrics, which corroborates the notion of coexistence of both rationalities. The understanding of development takes place in this study, from the correlation between the manifestations of identified rationalities, with five dimensions of sustainability: environmental, social, territorial, economic, and political, anchored in Sachs (2004). From this, it was possible to present the potential of TSMM as a tourist route, making the relationship between tourism and sustainable development.