City Hall seeks partners to invest in infrastructure
Tourism is one of the most sustainable forms of generating employment, income, and quality of life in Brazilian cities. The figures are impressive: over 7 million jobs and approximately 8% of the national GDP come from tourism in Brazil, according to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). In Paraná, tourism activities presented 5.4% expansion in August this year, the second-best performance in the country, only behind the state of Goiás, with 8.8%. In general, the volume of services, including the touristic activities, grew 1% in Paraná in August, ahead of the national average (0.5%). This is the sixth consecutive monthly evolution, with growth since February, reinforcing the local economy expansion indexes. Everyone wins with well-structured tourism: Tour sectors, hospitality in general, bars, restaurants, and stores are greatly benefited from the flow of tourists seeking nice and well-groomed locations for their vacations or weekend breaks.
São Jerônimo da Serra, with its countless waterfalls, caves, rivers, hills, indigenous reserves, and awesome landscapes, has everything to please all kinds of tourists – from the adventure-seeking to families, and even to elderly visitors. But tourist activities are just starting. Sapopema, a neighboring city, is being used as a benchmark for Rafael Batista, the municipal secretary of Tourism and Environment in São Jerônimo da Serra. “In 2018, Sapopema had six hosting locations. Today, it has more than 20. The city welcomes 400 to 600 people every weekend. São Jerônimo can become an important tourist route since it has many more attractions, but we need to structure it to welcome tourists”, he says.
Since he took over the department, Batista has been talking with the owners of ranches and farms who own one or more attractions, cataloging them, evaluating their structures and encouraging them to form associations to receive public funding. “We have reactivated the Municipal Tourism Council, which was inactive since 2009, and now we are talking with the indigenous reserves, the Federal Attorney General’s Office, and Funai (Brazilian Indian Foundation) for the tribes to organize themselves into internal tourism councils, so that we can include them in the routes, generating income for them. We have to make everything legal”, he explains. With the motto “Culture, Flavor, and Adventure” for the tourism in the city, the secretary wants to encourage the advertising of the indigenous culture from the two reserves in the city, the Barão de Antonina and the São Jerônimo reserves. “With the councils and associations, we can seek funds with the Ministry of Tourism, guide them to invest in reforms, purchase of materials, those things”, he explains.
The main challenge at the moment is to be able to assemble an infrastructure in the locations, mainly at the waterfalls, that allow safe access, and then, increase the advertising of the city. “We have to invest in signaling, stairs, handrails, ecologic garbage cans, a structure that allows accessibility with all the necessary safety so that the elderly can also visit us. However, most of the tourist points are within private properties, and the City is forbidden from investing public money into private areas”, he says. According to him, the solution is to seek sponsors for the structures. “We are seeking companies in the region for that. The idea is to invest in the areas and advertise their brands in the locations with signs. We connect the companies and the landlords”, he adds.
According to Batista, the next activity is a driver training course, which will meet the needs of 40 young people in the city. “We will train them to cater for the tourists, to take them to the places, and also to help in any rescue, if necessary”, he says. The professional training and generation of income, aligned with the respect and preservation of nature, mainly among youngsters, is one of the aims of the tourism development project in the region. “Most of them leave the city in search of jobs. But we want them to stay here, thinking about assembling snack kiosks, a fishing farm, something to provide their subsistence”, he declares.
The idea of improving and promoting tourism in São Jerônimo is already steering up the community. “There is always someone hoping to see the flow of people increase. But we already have people getting prepared, taking loans to invest. In the Terra Nova District, a house that was abandoned has been transformed into a hostel, we have some other properties in the São João do Pinhal District, and camping areas are being built, with toilets and basic infrastructure”, he adds. For the city in general, this is very interesting. “We don’t want tourists to just spend the day here. We want them to come and sleep here. If he sleeps here, he will eat here. If he eats here, all the commerce and the cities gain with it”, he concludes.
Photo: Instagram @visitesaojeronimodaserra