Tourism, culture and development between sustainability and (in)sustainability

Abstract

The tourism is one of the factors of the contemporary development and of the intensification of the social relationship, typical of the capitalist production model. It is an activity that requires the use and the appropriation of natural and cultural environments, produced by work, to turn it into spaces of leisure and consumption. It is part of the current dynamic of the capital, which creates territorialities, like an answer to the crises of global accumulation, involving the market, the State and the Civilian Society. It is also a service that supports the recovering of the human work, to the progressive growth of the in- dustrial, commercial and financial work relationships of the several international markets, besides, as an export product, to be constituted in one of the main merchandise of the foreign trade. It is a sector accus- tomed to mythologies, sometimes is considered the solution capable to solve the socioeconomic prob- lems of the outlying countries and sometimes is seen as a savage industry, capable to destroy the identity of communities. This article reflects about the meanings, contradictions and challenges related to tourism sustainability, facing of the meanings of the development adopted by the government policies and its disconnection with the culture policies that may contribute, in value and guidelines, to the construction of the solidary tourism, turned to the foment of the cultural diversity and the living quality of the local populations.