Tourism planning, participative management arrangements and the importance of university extension: the experience in the Baixada Verde Tourism Region

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the process of building participatory public policies in the tourism area, through a case study regarding the Baixada Verde tourist region and its “Regional Council”, as well as highlighting the role of university extension during this journey. Therefore, this work presents the peculiarities of this territory, known as “Baixada Fluminense”, which, for tourism planning purposes, was called “Baixada Verde”. This article is characterized as descriptive of qualitative character, uses the bibliographic and documentary research, as well as the participant observation techniques, the content analysis of the Statute of the Regional Tourism Council of Baixada Verde and the report of experiences of the developed activities. in the years 2017, 2018 and 2019. The results presented here are partial, from an ongoing process since 2017. The experience of the Baixada Verde Regional Tourism Council is recent (its Statute was published in May 2019) following the mobilization and commitment of the members of the Baixada Verde Forum (started in 2017). Despite the existing challenges (especially violence and urban misery), it was found that several advances in the public policy structure of tourism in the region occurred and the University, through an extension project of tourism planning, has been playing an important role in this process. As well as the 2030 agenda is an opportunity to strengthen tourism as an instrument to achieve its goals.