Happiness, public policy and tourism development: a proposal for the Polo Coast of Delta

Abstract

In this article discusses about the public policy generation in tourism to development of territory Coastal Tourist Polo of the Delta (PI-Brasil), which, in the perspective of this research, should be based on the Gross National Happiness index (FIB), besides other less comprehensive and more specific. Therefore, the objective was to presente the bases that support the proposal of a tourist development in a human scale, defining the structure, for the contribution of public policies, based on data and information coming from, among others source, the FIB dimensions. Therefore, it was used a methodology based on the qualitative and quantitative analisys of the gross national happiness in the four municipalities (Ilha Grande, Parnaíba, Luís Correia and Cajueiro da Praia) of the territory delimited for study, through questionnaire surveys applied to three groups: Public managers, experts and resident population. In this investigation, the FIB of the study territory was calculated based on the residents’ perception of their reality. In this way, the results obtained stand out the ones that lead to the conclusion that the tourism development should be guided by the needs and desires of the residents in the tourist destination, beyond the visitors and private initiative, characterized by the dimensions of to be, to be, to have and to do, generating satisfactory mechanisms (public policies), guaranteeing the economic and social success of a tourist destination and, consequently, a high happiness index.