Turismo e mudanças climáticas: uma teoria substantiva das estratégias de adaptação dos meios de hospedagem do Circuito das Águas Paulista

• Ano de defesa: 2017
• Autor(a) principal: Brandão, Cristiane do Nascimento
• Orientador(a): Barbieri, José Carlos
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Palavras-chave em Português: Turismo; Mudanças climáticas; Estratégias de adaptação; Crise hídrica
• Palavras-chave em Inglês: Tourism; Climate change; Adaptation strategies; Water crisis
• Link de acesso: https://hdl.handle.net/10438/18397

In recent years, not only the interest on Climate Change (CC) has been increasing, but also many adaptation and mitigation efforts have been made by organizations and government around the world to deal with this issue. The adaption to adverse effects of climate change, as well as the reduction of actions that can contribute to these changes are vital to reduce uncertainties about the future of the mankind. Adaptation and mitigation actions have been necessary in face of the tourism potentialities to contribute to, and to be affected by, the climate change. This research sought to analyze how the accommodation sector on the Aguas Paulista Circuit (APC) has adapted to climate change based on the meaning the managers have attributed to certain experiences. By taking these issues into account, a 'substantive theory' of adaptation to climate change has been developed and applied. In this unique case study, essentially qualitative, and carried out in the APC region, it is worth noting that the main driver of tourism in the region has been the quality of water from natural sources. Most of the municipalities belonging to the APC area have faced water rationing; therefore, they have experienced economic losses in the tourism sector. As a result, the hypothesis related to the 'substantive theory' - which proved to be valid – was the fact that the local satakeholders’ perception that the water crisis (central category) is believed by them to be linked to a climate change and to its associated effects. In order to develop any adaptive strategy, it is first necessary to be aware that the observed phenomenon has posed a threat to the continuity of business operations in the region. In this research, the central category has been constituted of three major properties: the ability to cope with the climate change; the strategic adaptations; and, the financial factors. These properties are part of the central category and help to define them. By crisscrossing the ‘substantive theory’ used in the literature, it was observed that out of 10 theoretical considerations, only 1 has not been corroborated; this proves to be a significant finding about the application of substantive theory on climate change adaptations in the accommodation sector. By using the substantive theory, it was found that tourism in the APC region was affected by the water crisis resulting in a reduction in the tourist flow. It was noticed that the climate change and extreme weather events can interfere in travel decisions. At the same time, it was reported that broadcast news on the water crisis also negatively affected tourism sector, causing uncertainty and damaging the image of the tourism destination. Finally, it was found that tourism is one of the most sensitive activities to climate variability; tourism destinations are highly affected by climate factors. It is expected this work can contribute to the understanding on the need to adapt to the climate change and extreme climate events because of the risk to affect business.