Evaluation of Public Policies on Tourism: Methodological Aspects and Evaluation Results PRODETUR in Parnamirim / RN (2005-2012)

Abstract

This paper presents the main results obtained with a dissertation aimed to evaluate the PRODETUR – Tourism Development Program – in a Rio Grande do Norte city, Parnamirim. The objective of this paper is to show how was the process of creating in the evaluation program methodology, based on a joint evaluation of the public policies literature and directions of development as freedom, the Indian author Amartya Sen. As the survey findings emphasize that PRODETUR generates some elements that may contribute to the development of Parnamirim / RN. However, these elements are small compared to the real possibilities, since the program's results would have been more significant. In this perspective, we emphasize that strengthening public management and mobilization of the local population are indispensable for greater effectiveness PRODETUR the next steps. We also emphasize that such results with the program evaluation in Parnamirim, were only possible by use of an approach to the development and evaluation of public policies in which qualitative factors prevail over the quantitative, showing that an evaluation based only on economics would be insufficient to evaluate which actually results that a program of this magnitude causes in a particular location.