“Drift Sailing”: ethnographic notes about Tourism in Ilhéus, Bahia

This paper attempts to discuss some issues on tourism in Ilhéus City, located in south Bahia State, Brazil, focusing mainly on relations between local entrepreneurs and the place and trying to analyze in which ways those relations influence the local touristic system itself. It stems from a qualitative research based on data from ethnographic descriptions. Research techniques such as participant observation, semi-structured survey and non-structured survey were used, and the subjects were consumers as well as public and private managers. Surveys in lodging facilities were also performed. As an outcome, it can be said that the gap between available resources and attractions effectively created for tourism, as well as the lack of action from both public and private sectors on local tourism, represent only the symptoms – and not the causes – of a problem which is centered in the invisibility -for public adminstration-, of tourism as a way for social and economic development