Sectoral planning and budget execution in tourism in Brazil (2003-2018)

Abstract

The Ministry of Tourism (MTur, established in 2003) has completed 16 years of operation acting as the main official tourism body in Brazil. Having produced three national tourism plans in that period and executed R$ 18.1 billion. The purpose of this article is to analyze the performance of the Brazilian government in the field of tourism, focusing on the relationship between sectoral planning and budget execution carried out by the Ministry of Tourism, from 2003 to 2018. The research also aims to: identify the position that tourism occupied in the Brazilian governmental agenda; reveal the profile of public investments in tourism in Brazil; and verify if the National Tourism Plans have been properly incorporated into the public budget. This is an exploratory and descriptive research, with a quantitative approach, based mainly on the survey and analysis of data on public budget in tourism of the Brazilian federal government. When focusing on the allocation and budgetary execution of the MTur, it appears that from 2003 to 2006 the body underwent a period of strengthening and occupied a position of relative prominence in the political agenda in the period from 2007 to 2010, when it presented a continuous growth in both the allocation and in the execution of resources, mainly concentrated in the infrastructure area. From 2011 to 2018, tourism occupied a peripheral position on the governmental agenda, a period in which MTur presents a high budgetary instability, with significant contingency, a situation that suggests problems in the composition of its budget as well as in the management capacity of MTur in implementing programs and projects.