Tourism and excursion: the rural qualifying adjective - a study about the experiences and potentialities of the Old North Region of Paraná, Brazil

Abstract

This study focuses the contemporary diversification of tourism under the Geography perspective, having the rural tourism as its main theme, and as sub-themes its potentiality, regulation, impacts and perspectives. Among the current trends of the social practices of tourism there is the valorization of rusticity and natural landscapes – the rural areas are, therefore, also considered appropriate for leisure. In Brazil, rural tourism does not have a predetermined concept. In the discussion of what it is or what is must be, in the interrelation among the several agents connected to its regulation, some possibilities are put into perspective: the activity can be a means to a modernization, which excludes large number of Brazilian population; on the other hand, it can be a way of integrating these people in the transformations the society needs. The final text was divided was divided into five parts: the diversification of tourism while a contemporary process, examining its current trends; the different contributions which support conceptual understanding of the main theme and survey of the problems and benefits; the different actions which have an influence on rural tourism; at different levels; the elements of potentiality; and a picture of the rural tourism in the studied region. The empirical survey dealt with the incipient development of tourism in the rural areas of Old North Region of Paraná, Brazil, based on the new trends, on the experiences carried out by their supporters as well as on the profile of the farm owners who are engaged with this activity as an economic alternative, or as visitors. Through the necessary relation between the theoretical and empirical approaches, there is an attempt to contribute to the knowledge, understanding and analysis of this expanding phenomenon, not yet thoroughly dealt with by geographical studies.