The collective entrepreneurship in the context of sustainable rural tourism: an experience of south of Brasil

The collective entrepreneurship has proven to be fundamental in the context of sustainable rural tourism, a fact that motivated the development of this study in Parana State, south region of Brazil, where there is a collective experience around tourism. Specifically, this study aims to: a) understand the process of collective entrepreneurship developed between tourism enterprises and b) analyze the possible contributions of collective entrepreneurship to strengthen the tourism entrepreneurs involved. Therefore, it was developed a qualitative and descriptive study. The data were obtained through interviews with the managers of collective initiative, and also from secondary data. The main results show that the collective experience in Parana State around sustainable rural tourism reveals a pioneering initiative in the region, and the collective entrepreneurship is proved fundamental for triggering this process. Gains are more evident than difficulties in this collective initiative investigated.