Mundo Amazónico (Jul 2017)
Turism, mega sport events and 2014 world cup: a view at/from the amazonian tri-border Brazil-Peru-Colombia
Abstract
For the second time in history, Brazil hosted the most important football tournament on the planet: the fifa World Cup. In the edition held in 2014, the Amazon region participated directly in the process, with the city of Manaus as one of the 12 subsections elected. This article is based on considerations on this mega-sport event and its impacts on Pan-Amazonia. In order to understand the legacies and impacts of the 2014 World Cup as a mega-sport event in the Amazonian region of the Brazil-Peru-Colombia the cities of Tabatinga (br) and Letícia (co) were analysed. Considering that these cities were not host cities of the world championship, we recognize their importance as entry to the Brazilian territory to watch the games in Manaus and other Brazilian cities. Not much emphasis was given to cities outside the mega-event circuit in question, leaving aside the analysis of spatial and territorial reconfigurations linked to this global activity in the national territory. From extensive fieldwork in both cities in the period prior to the event (2013), during the year and season of the event (2014) and later (2015) we recognize some infrastructural transformations in the Letícia hotel chain and short-term impacts on the system of transportation in Tabatinga. Although relatively brief and relatively simple, the mobilizations that took place in the two cities proved to be relevant, making clear not only the "little" that was done, but especially the "much" that could have been done and was not. This "much" does not only concern urban infrastructures, hotels, communication and transport, which have not been improved. It refers mainly to the missed opportunity on the part of the public power and the tri-national private initiative to join forces to further consolidate the important pan-Amazonian urban network that the region of the Brazil-Peru-Colombia Triple Border establish.
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