Reflexões sobre o turismo social em áreas de fronteira: O incipiente turismo social na região fronteiriça de La Fortuna de San Carlos, Costa Rica

Abstract

Tourism in border areas is a long-standing phenomenon, however, it requires a lot of documentation and research, mainly in the border regions of Latin America. For this reason, an attempt has been made to investigate the phenomena related to cross-border tourism with its possible impacts and dynamics. One of these is the so-called social tourism, which today could be seen as an alternative for the reactivation of the tourism sector in the face of the threat of COVID-19. In recent decades, a new tourism model has been developed at the international level that has tried to take into account the most vulnerable sectors of the population. This new model has been called social tourism, which raises the possibility or right to enjoy leisure without social distinction. In Costa Rica, for a couple of years, an attempt has been made to implement this model, with the experience of a community located in border areas such as La Fortuna de San Carlos, near the border with Nicaragua. The purpose of this document is to present an analysis of the recent phenomenon of social tourism in border areas and its link both in tourism policies and with the local development of border communities in Costa Rica.