{"id":20861,"date":"2015-03-17T07:30:24","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T10:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=20861"},"modified":"2016-04-05T10:46:29","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T13:46:29","slug":"debate-in-tabajaras-frames-favela-tourism-as-a-tool-for-social-inclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=20861","title":{"rendered":"Debate in Tabajaras Frames Favela Tourism as a Tool for Social Inclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

A debate to discuss favela tourism as a tool for\u00a0social inclusion took place on Tuesday March 11 in Tabajaras<\/a>, Copacabana<\/a>. The event was the twelfth in a series of debates organized by the newspaper O Dia<\/em><\/a> under the project Rio Sem Fronteiras<\/a>. Five panelists discussed the challenge of\u00a0creating\u00a0a positive form of favela tourism, in contrast to the negative tourism that has boomed since the introduction of the Pacifying Police Units (UPPs)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The panelists ranged from local tour guides to representatives of the\u00a0Support Service for Small Businesses and Micro-companies (Sebrae),\u00a0Rio+Social<\/a>\u00a0(formerly known as UPP Social<\/a>), and other representatives of the municipal government.<\/p>\n

Favela tourism<\/a> has become a major business in the last few years. According to the panel, 60% of foreign tourists want to visit a favela, and most tours cost upwards of US$40 per person<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The focus of this debate was on how to move away from the style of tourism that turns\u00a0the favela into a display,\u00a0where\u00a0tourists look at\u00a0but do not engage with the community they visit. Instead, the participants’ aim was to encourage a positive, productive and healthy form of tourism within the favelas.<\/p>\n

\"Community<\/a><\/p>\n

To encourage more positive tourism, panelists emphasized the importance of\u00a0interaction between community residents and visitors to combat the negative stereotypes of favelas<\/a> perpetuated by the mainstream media<\/a>. Carmen Givoni, a tour guide in Morro dos Prazeres<\/a>, said that responsible tourism has the potential to\u00a0\u201cdemystify the favela population, take people up the hill and demystify what foreign people think of\u00a0a community\u2014only negative things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Givoni stressed the value\u00a0of the \u201chuman encounter\u201d because this interaction is directly beneficial to the community residents. She explained: \u201cWhat we try to encourage in the youngsters is the curiosity to meet, to speak with and to get to know where others come from and what they do. This is fundamental to knowing others, to opening up the world and for tolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panelists also discussed how tourism\u00a0can bring prosperity in more than just an economic sense. Gilmar Lopes, the president of the Tabajaras\u00a0tourism organization\u00a0Tabritur<\/a>, stressed that \u201cwe cannot just think about money, because tourism is money but tourism is also social inclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tabritur\u00a0offers hiking opportunities that explain the history of the community in both Tabajaras and Morro dos Cabritos<\/a>, so that residents as well as tourists become more aware of the favela’s\u00a0history. Lopes said\u00a0he believes that \u201cthrough tourism you discover culture, you discover knowledge, you have the opportunity to better your own life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Gilmar<\/a><\/p>\n

Representatives of Sebrae and Rio+Social discussed how to achieve\u00a0this responsible, positive form of tourism. Fabianna Ramos, a Sebrae representative, referenced a study that \u201cshowed that a tourist spends on average US$1.50 (R$5) in the area on a visit, which is on a bottle of water.\u201d In other words, most tourists do not engage in economic transactions that significantly benefit the\u00a0communities they visit. Therefore, she argued, businesses need to be developed so that tourists stay longer and spend more. \u201cTourism is the integration of the chain of production, of gastronomy, of handicrafts and of cultural production.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the panel also mentioned the importance of encouraging Brazilian tourists, especially people from Rio de Janeiro, to visit favelas. The fact that most cariocas have never been to a favela reflects\u00a0the distance and lack of communication between social groups, as well as the impact of negative stereotypes. Givoni\u00a0believes that with greater tourism people will understand that \u201cin the favela there is no poverty.” He stated: “Poverty, to me, means a poverty of the spirit. In the favela, there is material difficulty.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas A debate to discuss favela tourism as a tool for\u00a0social inclusion took place on Tuesday March 11 in Tabajaras, Copacabana. The event was the twelfth in a series of debates organized […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":20862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1288,1333,1463,329],"tags":[1361,756,258,1561,65,989,15,664,156,784,194],"writer":[1564],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-event-reports","9":"category-perceptions","10":"category-solutions","11":"tag-endfavelastigma","12":"tag-community-organizing","13":"tag-community-solution","14":"tag-favela-tour","15":"tag-gentrification","16":"tag-morro-dos-cabritos","17":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","18":"tag-prazeres","19":"tag-south-zone","20":"tag-tabajaras","21":"tag-tourism","22":"writer-brooke-parkin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20861"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=20861"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=20861"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=20861"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=20861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}