Participatory Planning of Tourism and Its Challenges: Application of Elinor Ostrom Principles in Colônia Witmarsum-PR, Brazil

Abstract

Ostrom (2011) points out that the achievements of a community are not only a chance, because they are supported by participatory planning actions aimed at organizing and strengthening local structures that favor subjects and the environment. It is understood that tourism can be mirrored in this set of guidelines to contribute to the communities that wish to implement it, so this research aimed to describe the challenges in the participatory planning of tourism in Colonia Witmarsum, a community made up of german mennonite immigrants which is located 60 km from Curitiba/PR. The scope of the objective was based on a bibliographical and documentary review on tourism planning, local and historical development of the community; and to this was added the realization of on-site visits and semi-structured interviews, whose focus was to approach reality and seek to understand the perception of local management in relation to participatory tourism planning. It was concluded that there is much to be done with regard to tourism planning and it has been realized that the principles outlined by Ostrom (2011) are not put into practice, which makes the success of the activity as a vector for development a reality still far away.