Understanding community and solidarity tourism: a dialog with experiences in Marraquech and Latin America

Abstract

Discussion on community tourism and solidarity tourism reflects on others such as: cultural tourism, ethnic tourism, ecotourism and rural tourism, many times expropriated by darwinean logics and capitalist dynamics which limit tourist experiences potentialities to the conservation of traditional ways of life. This article intends to dialog with commercial exchange ceremonies experienced in Marraquech in Dezember 2008 to understand community and solidarity tourism in Latin America. Tourism in Marraquech is divided through a wall. Inside it, at the Medina, socio cultural beriberi and Arabian culture is predominant, under the only commercial ceremonial: you never know if you are doing big deal. Outside, west prone socio-cultural circuit is predominant, with hotel chains, restaurants and international shops known as the more expensive, the best! Reflection is made about the way ceremonies, turned into ways of life are similar or not. No doubt real wall is not as big as the symbolic wall between villages: western and communitarian, and between tourisms, conventional and solidarity local based one.

Keywords

• Turismo comunitário e solidário. Modos de vida e de produção