Antes que caia! Patrimônio histórico e turismo em Igarassu, Pernambuco

Resumo

This master dissertation deals with tourism as an efficient solution to the problem of the material preservation of Brazilian historical and artistic heritage. Tourism is seen here as a possible instrument inside a larger policy that should be implemented in order to reduce the losses that result from the deterioration threatening most registered cultural monuments. We give evidence showing that, all along the history of cultural heritage policy in Brazil, the official instances meant to protect this heritage have generally tended to detach from the rest of public administration. The resulting configuration of this policy can therefore be described, following public policy analysis, as one of bureaucratic insulation. In the case we deal with, insulation has been defended by the prestige of high culture and by the exclusive legitimacy of architects and historians, who constitute the ruling elite of this policy. As obvious consequences to that, historically, the budget of this policy has been reduced, and its technicians have proved incapable to enter into a dialogue with interlocutors from other branches of government or from private sector, therefore making it impossible to reach alternative or complementary sources of funding, and to reverse the general tendency towards deterioration of the cultural heritage. Yet, so as not to exaggerate the positive effects that may be expected from tourism, we propose to present a wide comparative panorama of activities of cultural tourism in foreign countries, through a review of literature in that field. Indeed, this literature, when it deals with developed countries, makes a consequent use of economics of culture and of trustworthy and detailed statistics, contrary to what we see in the works that deal with these questions in Brazil. It therefore constitutes an indispensable reference for whom wishes to apprehend that service branch without preconceived ideas, nor excessive optimism. The empirical focus of this dissertation is the historical site of Igarassu, which is part of a tour also including Itamaracá, Recife, and Olinda, in Pernambuco state. Thirty kilometers North of Recife, Igarassu proposes a series of artistically highly valuable sixteenth century buildings. However, this historical value, associated with the natural beauty of the site, has not been sufficient to attract or even interest any part of the tourism industry, nor to move the 10 population or the city council to adopt a more energetic and consequent policy in order to succeed in making tourists stay and spend more on the site. On the whole, for the average tourist, Igarassu is no more than a passing point on the way to the beach (Itamaracá), and doesn’t deserve a more than fifteen minutes stop, nor spending more than two to three Reais per head. The resources deriving from this “tourism” do not cover up the maintenance costs of the cultural heritage we study as an example, and can therefore be described as simply predatory and regressive. As a conclusion, the text develops a series of recommendations and propositions that may turn this negative situation into a more positive one, the aim of this dissertation being to contribute to the improvement of public action quality in our country.

Ficha do documento

Tipo

Dissertação

Ano

2006

Instituição

Fundação Getulio Vargas

Fonte

Repositório da FGV

Idioma

Português

Acesso

Acesso aberto

Identificador

oai:repositorio.fgv.br:10438/2436

Temas

Políticas PúblicasAdministração Pública

Palavras-chave

PernambucoPolíticas públicasTurismo culturalPatrimônio históricoHistorical heritageCultural tourismPublic policyAdministração públicaPatrimônio histórico - PernambucoTurismo cultural - PernambucoPolítica culturalPernambuco - Política cultural