Vulnerability in the use of city territory by tourists

1. Vulnerability in the use of city territory by tourists MaríliaSteinberger and Neio Campos Programa de Pós-Graduação em Geografia e Centro de Excelência em Turismo (Graduate Program in Geography and Center of Excellence in Tourism) Universidade de Brasília University of Brasília

2. The objective of this study is to discuss vulnerability in the use of city territory by tourists, taking small cities in Central Brazil Region, still little known as tourist objects, as empirical reference. 2

3. The understanding of tourism as territorial use differs from the traditional approaches that consider it a phenomenon, system or empirical practice. • Therefore, the analysis of tourism as the use of city territory leads to the adoption of the Brazilian geographer Milton Santos’s contribution about the relationship between geographic space and used territory as the basic theoretical axis, which allows for the reflection on who uses the territory and how they use it. 3

4. Residents, hotel entrepreneurs, travel agents, local governments and also tourists, who have special emphasis in this paper, form the set of main social agents responsible for the appropriation of the city for tourist use. • The way these agents experience tourism in the city generates greater or smaller vulnerability. Thus, vulnerability will be adopted in this study as a complementary theoretical axis. 4

5. Such understanding allows for the consideration of vulnerability of tourist use of city territory both in its negative and its positive aspects, since it does not represent only the recognition of threats and risks, but also the capability of responding to them. 5

6. A short time ago discussions about tourism in Brazil were limited to the coast. • In the present paper we are referring to tourism in the countryside, specifically in the Central Brazil Region, which encompasses the Federal District and the states of Goiás and Tocantins, bringing three examples of small cities. 6

7. This paper is organized in three sections: • Brief review of spatial theory in order to base the idea that tourism is a territorial use and understand the vulnerability associated with it. • The way Geography can contribute to the understanding of the notion of vulnerability applied to tourism. • Examples of cities where incipient tourism can bring both threats/risks and opportunities/responses. 7

8. 1. TOURISM AS TERRITORIAL USE Milton Santos’s theory not only allows for basing the idea that tourism is a use of city territory, but mainly to emphasize that city territory used by tourism needs to be taking into account that space and territory cannot be dissociated. The author clearly demonstrates the relationship between space and territory: [...] geographic space is defined as the union of object systems and action systems that cannot be dissociated, and their hybrid forms, the techniques which indicate how the territory is used: how, where, by whom, why, what for [...] to apprehend territorial constitution, according to its uses [...] enables one to think the territory as an actor and not only as a stage, that is, the territory in its active role (Santos & Silveira, 2001:11). 8

9. When it is proposed that tourism should be understood as territorial use, it is not enough to realize that tourism takes place in the territory. “Experiencing tourism” means an appropriation of territory, which results from the intention to use the territory for tourist purposes. • This territorial use does not take place over a tabula rasa, but over a historical “taking place” which represents the building up of diverse temporalities, appropriated by tourist use. • In other words, we could ask ourselves what the social agents are doing when they promote tourism. They are appropriating natural and artificial geographic objects and giving them a new meaning – a tourist meaning. 9

10. Such agents, responsible for effecting tourist use, interfere in socio-spatial dynamics. Each one of them has a specific share of participation in this process. • Among them, tourists are the ones who consolidate such dynamic because their actions, singularized by their movements, engender a new spatial and demographic mobility which does not take place in the used territory as a whole. • Tourist actions are selective and take place in certain fractions of territory. The city is a fraction of used territory that has extensively been encompassing tourism. The way tourists appropriate it generates greater or smaller vulnerability. 10

11. 2. TOURISM VULNERABILITY AND TOURISTS VULNERABILITY Milton Santos’s spatial theory, when working with the ideas of superior and inferior circuits, citizenship and slow men, makes it possible to deepen the geographic dimension of the notion of vulnerability as well as to relate it to tourism and tourists. 11

12. Tourism as the city’s territorial use tackles both circuits. • It tackles the superior circuit when tourists appropriate technological modernization of hotel complexes and international airways, as well as online-sold tourist packages. • The inferior circuit is evident in the relationships with the local receiver communities which, on the one hand, benefit from the creation of job and income opportunities and, on the other hand, see their culture and values being threatened by the relatively expressive presence of tourists from different parts of the world, which demonstrates the vulnerability intrinsic to tourism. 12

13. In general, tourists are considered active agents, who appropriate city territory and its surroundings in a predatory way, whereas residents are considered passive agents. • In fact, it is important to argue that none of the two ways of thinking is correct. • Residents should not be seen only as passive agents of tourist activity since their capacity to respond to risks does not take place in individual terms, but in organized groups, exercising citizenship which becomes concrete in the territory. 13

14. Concerning the idea of slow men, Milton Santos states that cities are the place where the weak may exist because, as the “stage of all capital and work activities, the city may attract and host multitudes of poor people” expelled from other places. • According to him, “the presence of poor people enhances and enriches socio-spatial diversity”. • He asserts that this is the city’s future and concludes that “in the cities, the time that rules, or will rule, is the time of slow men”, that is, “the power belongs to the slow” because they “escape rational totalitarianism, which is an adventure excluded to the rich and middle classes” (Santos, 1996). 14

15. There is room, then, to question how slow men take part in tourism, speculating about what they win or lose with tourism and what their relationship with tourists is. • Even though tourism has become more and more a mass activity, slow men have always been present as workers in this sector, winning jobs and income. • The losses, however, are mainly related to prejudice against these men’s visibility in the city territory. • In general, tourists are shown only the richest and most beautiful parts of the city, whereas the territory occupied by slow men is hidden. 15

16. 3. THREATS AND RESPONSES TO VULNERABILITY RESULTING FROM TOURISM IN CENTRAL BRAZIL REGION • The choice of the cities of Colinas do Sul, Cavalcante and Alto Paraíso is justified by the incipient presence of tourist activity and by the pressure that these cities have been going under on the part of tourists. • It is assumed that a probable increase in this activity will make it possible to simultaneously analyze risks and opportunities in a moment which is still propitious to intervention that may trigger future responses. • We understand that risks are related to the decisions to promote the intensification of tourist activity in these cities, while opportunities are related to the decisions to prioritize actions capable of minimizing these risks. 16

17. Tourism in Colinas do Sul, after the lake at the Usina Hidrelétrica de Serra da Mesa (Serra da Mesa Hydroelectric Plant) was created, takes place spontaneously. • In this sense, it is fundamental to raise awareness of the need for articulation between the community, entrepreneurs and public powers so as to hamper three manifestations of vulnerability that have been observed by the increase in the number of tourists: pressure of some land owners to delimit lots in the expectation of estate valuing, demographic pressure over sanitation infrastructure and environmental pressure. • As examples of the capability of responding in order to minimize such vulnerability are campaigns of environmental education and the construction of a Tourists Care Center. 17

18. Cavalcante is peculiar for the presence of Quilombo of Kalungas, who descend from slaves who lived in isolation until the beginning of the 1980s and, nowadays, are officially owners of an area of over 237,000 hectares, 70 to 80 per cent of which have been invaded by land grabbers, which reveals strong pressure over land occupation, configuring vulnerability. • Kalungas start to accept tourism as an alternative economic activity, more specifically ecotourism, due to the concentration of natural attractions (waterfalls) in their territory, and cultural tourism due to the preservation of secular religious traditions. • There is a disproportion between tourist potential and load capacity of natural and cultural attractions, another manifestation of vulnerability. • In order to minimize such vulnerabilities, the following are suggested: the adoption of a participative tourist plan; the implementation of guided tours so as to avoid aggressions to nature; the definition of environmental protection areas and ecological parks. 18

19. The third and final empirical reference of tourist cities in Central Brazil Region is Alto Paraíso, São Jorge village specifically, located at the entrance of Parque Nacional da Chapada dos Veadeiros (Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park), the destination of esoteric people attracted by the mysticism in the place. • The analysis of the environmental transformations generated by rapid and intense implementation of tourism brings along the following risks: devaluation of local culture; degradation and segregation of public areas invaded by tourists; exclusion of the native population in the process of economic growth; real estate speculation; and increase in the cost of living. • Responses to the risks mentioned above are the foundation of ASJOR (Associação de Moradores de São Jorge – São Jorge Residents Association) and of a community radio station. 19

20. IN THE GUISE OF CONCLUSION • This paper defended the idea that only actions shared by social agents may minimize vulnerability of tourism over city territory. • Based on a “global paradox”, by John Naisbitt, whose text says: minor protagonists, contrary to what has been thought, are the ones who make decisions, in the case of tourism, tourists and residents are considered minor protagonists that are active agents. Such consideration which does not imply dispensing with the fundamental presence of the State and enterprises as major protagonists. 20