ENTRAI - Encontro das Tradições Italianas : festa popular : patrimônio cultural, lazer e turismo

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate a popular carnival called Entrai - an Italian Traditions Celebration that takes place where the Italian immigration started in the mountains of the Rio Grande do Sul state Nova Milano, Farroupilhas district. First, the theme was chosen because there are no scientific writings on the event, and on the other hand, for its importance that allowed me to study some pertinent questions about leisure and tourism, which are areas that have always been related. The investigation was proposed to verify the purpose of the Entrai s creation, describe and analyze its characteristics, check out the tourists profile that are attracted to it and describe the innovations and peculiarities on the celebration s program in a critical way. The theoretical references are fundamentally based on leisure, carnivals and events as ways to attract tourists. This is a qualitative study and the methodology used is descriptive, a case study research. Document analysis, interviews, observations and field notes were used to collect information. The document analysis and the interviews were the strategies that allowed a better comprehension on the carnival s history and the understanding of its initial and current purposes. Our conclusions say that Entrai was created as part of a project of Farroupilha s municipal planning for tourism, with an objective to be a tourist and cultural attraction. This study also revealed that this event has a tourist potential, even though there are planning and management distortions that get out of the way with its initial purposes. The Entrai reveals itself as a popular carnival, which happens in an open space that must be preserved and prioritized by the city government, because of the historical relevance of the people that first arrived at the place.