Tourism and Memory through Oral History about LGBT+ elderly people’s travels

Abstract

The research presented here on LGBT+ elderly tourists is the result of a Master's Dissertation, in the Postgraduate Program in Tourism at EACH-. It was noted how distant public policies aimed at elderly people are from their real needs, especially when they are part of the group of LGBT+ people (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transsexuals and more possibilities of genders and sexualities). It is estimated that in Brazil in 2050, there will be a larger portion of the population made up of elderly people, and regardless of the advances or setbacks in current laws, this LGBT+ population will also have aged. Therefore, the main objective of the research is to analyze travel experiences, through the reports of elderly LGBT+ tourists, a public assisted by the NGO Eternamente Sou, the first Reference and Coexistence Center for LGBT+ elderly people in the country, and to identify aspects related to sexuality of these elderly people, their memories in relation to tourism and their desires. The theoretical framework was structured based on these three main themes through the lenses of Social Sciences, Tourism and Humanities. To this end, the selected methodology used qualitative approach techniques, with the type of descriptive-exploratory research and as a means of analyzing the information collected during the structured interviews, oral history. The results obtained allowed us to conclude that this research contributes to the question in which knowledge about this public in tourism is being structured and that it deals with the relationship between the memories of LGBT+ elderly people and their trips. Therefore, this work proves to be an important scenario for carrying out, continuing and deepening new research that addresses issues about sexuality, desires and memories of the elderly LGBT+ public and which consequently permeate tourism knowledge as a tool for formulating proposals for this segment.
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