Can community based tourism be a path to local development?

Abstract

In the Northeast coast of Brazil, tourism has expanded modifying places, in a way that localities that are living spaces of communities are transformed in touristic attractions. When just the dynamics of Capital is followed and people's aspirations are not taken into consideration, tourism tends to be globalized and massive, changing social, cultural, economical and ecological dynamics of the place, sometimes excluding populations from the newly established processes. In opposition to that, Community-Based Tourism (CBT) emerges based on the principles of local sustainable development and social inclusion, providing socio-economic benefits from experiences in natural and socio-cultural local environments. Starting from literature review, visits, observations, interviews, workshops and content analysis, highlighting the experiences of Porto de Pedras / AL and Ponta Grossa, Icapui / CE, the study investigated CBT initiatives. Based on results from the studied experiences, it is assumed that CBT can be an interesting and important alternative to local community and counties development from the perspective of environmental sustainability.