ITBC: a proposal for the evaluation of community-based tourism in Brazil

The main objective of this article is to structure the Community-Based Tourism Index in Brazil, here called ITBC, in order to contribute to measuring the effectiveness of this type of tourism and to point out ways that strengthen the initiatives/projects implemented in the country's traditional communities. To subsidize its structuring, the 50 pioneering experiences were mapped and studied, which were organized through the financial resources of public call carried out in 2008 by the Ministry of Tourism through the application of semi- structured interviews and the construction of thematic maps that illustrated the repercussion of several sociospatial conflicts related to the development of Community-Based Tourism (TBC) in these communities. Based on this specialization, ITBC was anchored on a set of indicators that were validated and later tested in the experience of Prainha do Canto Verde, a traditional community located on the coast of the brazilian state of Cear & aacute; and that is part of the Rede Cearense de Turismo Comunit & aacute;rio (TUCUM), one of the projects supported by the federal government in 2008. Its application in that community demonstrated the feasibility of the tool, however its reapplication is suggested every 02 years in order to identify new conflicts in the territory, changes in the management model and measure the transformations that will occur in the local production chain.