Copa do mundo FIFA 2014: implicações para o destino turístico Natal/RN - Brasil

Abstract

The presented study aimed to analyze the contributions provided by the holding of the FIFA World Cup 2014 for Natal/RN touristic destinations in Natal/RN. For that, it was analyzed the effectiveness of public management actions to provide a fitting infrastructure worthy of the event; it was measured which ways of State intervention contributed to the restructuring of urban places with touristic potential; it was identified which were the investments made by the touristic trade due to FIFA mega event; and which actions to professional qualification for the touristic sector that were promoted to meet the World Cup demand. Thus, the research justifies itself for filling a blank in the research about tourism when it comes to the investigation of how occurred the investments made by the State and the private initiative to the holding of the sportive FIFA mega event in Natal, showing its benefits to the city, its population and tourism. Therefore, the study had a qualitative approach, having a descriptiveexploratory character. As data collection instrument a semi structured interview schedule was developed, having as the study population elements in the private initiative and public organs members, besides secondary data usage. For this purpose, the use of content and documental analysis method was made based on data categorization. In the end, it was possible to realize that the FIFA World Cup 2014 made the State to invest a great amount of public resources in mobility, transport and tourism, which surpassed the amount of one billion reais, but all the interventions had as objective the making of the matches, despite the welfare these investments could have brought to the population. A local concentration of planned actions has happened. About tourism, it was concluded that the sportive mega event provided a reorganization of the activity in Rio Grande do Norte capital, mainly in the improvement of the beaches infrastructure; the increase of hotel rooms with the opening of new hotels and contributed with the increase of qualified hand work, in the same rhythm that courses for professional capacitation in tourism were offered. Besides the improvement of the places for touristic purposes, so far it is not possible to measure if the investments made for holding of the event will provide a feedback that justifies them.