Geomarketing and Geographic Information Systems as a Support for the Tourism Management of Rio de Janeiro’s Downtown Administrative Area
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Pinto, F.; 2Painho, M.; 3Menezes, P.; 4Fernandes, M.
1ISEGI-UNL / UFRJ Email: filipesantospinto@gmail.com
2ISEGI-UNL Email: painho@isegi.unl.pt
3UFRJ Email: pmenezes@acd.ufrj.br
4UFRJ Email: manoel.fernandes@ufrj.br
Abstract
Tourism in Brazil, and more specifically in Rio de Janeiro, is a major driver of the economy, and one of the main reasons for the entry of persons into this territory. Being one of the major economic, cultural and financial centers of Brazil, the city of Rio de Janeiro is internationally known for many cultural icons and landscapes, like the Cristo Redentor statue, the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema, the Corcovado and Pão de Açúcar Mountains, the Maracanã Stadium, the bohemian neighborhood of Lapa, the Municipal Theater, the National Library and the Sambódromo Marquês de Sapucaí, home of the Rio Carnival. Many tourists who visit Rio de Janeiro program their journeys in order to meet the main sights, such as beach areas, nightlife zones and the most visible monuments worldwide. Few are those who are interested or have available time to visit the main places that depict the origins of the city, where we can find the most visible points of religious, cultural, historical or heritage tourism of the city. Based on this assumption, the study area of this work is the Downtown Administrative Area of Rio de Janeiro, regarded as the cradle of the city, where we believe that it is an area underexplored in terms of tourism and with a lot of potential. In this way the main goal of this project is essentially the tourism potential analysis of the downtown Rio de Janeiro areas, with the support of Geomarketing techniques and GIS tools, looking for an improvement of the management and planning of tourism activities along the study area. In hope to get a better understanding of the current practices of tourism exploitation in this region, in order to identify witch areas are underexploited or overexploited in terms of tourism and with the analysis, proposing a better planning and more efficient and effective management of available resources. In order to achieve the aim of this work, was used the following methodology: It was build a Geographic Database with the Tourist Points of Interest; load this database with all the relevant information about these sights through web surveys and field surveys; construct a geographic information system with all the tourism data as well as accessibility data (main and secondary roads, bus lines, subway stations, streets, parking lots, bike paths), security infrastructures (police and fire stations) and health units (hospitals); create an Normalized Tourism Suitability Index for each point of interest considering various criteria and constraints to evaluate the tourism potential of a given place; construct Kernel maps in order to analyze the geographical behavior of the existing tourism patterns in the study area, in other words, know the behavior and spatial distribution/density of tourist attractions in downtown areas of Rio de Janeiro; spatial analysis the tourist potential of the study area using some Geomarketing techniques, such as construction of influence areas and network analysis (along the communication routes). Summarizing, this project aims to understand if the Center of Rio de Janeiro is also a place with significant tourism potential for tourists that usually look to other city areas for their visits; if there are overexploited or underexploited areas in terms of tourism in the Center of Rio de Janeiro; if this study and the methodology used in its development are relevant to help a tourism management and planning of a particular area, as well as an important tourism (geo)marketing support of this region, seeking to attract potential private investors or public subsidies to promote the tourist activity.