FINANCIALIZATION AND TOURISM: REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT FUNDS (FII) IN THE PRODUCTION OF TOURIST ENTERPRISES IN BRAZIL

• Grant number: 24/14476-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: March 01, 2025
• End date: February 28, 2029
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Rita de Cássia Ariza da Cruz
• Grantee: Larissa Prado Rodrigues
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The processes of financialization have expanded the logic and imperatives of interest-bearing capital throughout economic activity through the creation of financial products, such as Real Estate Investment Funds (FII), making financial capital into the production of space in the form of real estate assets. At the same time, tourism, an activity that has space as an essential condition for its reproduction, has led to the construction of a variety of tourist enterprises as it has become an important business in neoliberal capitalism, at a time when idle capital in search of profitable outlets has turned to the service economy. Against this backdrop, this research questions how the articulation between tourism, the production of space and financialization is consolidated and acts in the production of real estate for tourist developments through FII financing. The central hypothesis is that this movement points to a new moment for tourism in Brazil, in which the global process of financialization of the economy affects the sector, producing both traditional and new types of real estate development. With this in mind, our general objective is to critically analyze the relationship between tourism, the production of space and financialization, highlighting its consequences for the development and spatial expansion trends of Brazilian tourism via FIIs. As far as the method is concerned, the FIIs operating in the tourism sector will be identified and the topology they produce will be critically analyzed, observing the contradictions involved in this process. In order to understand this movement in a broad sense, the national scale will be used and, with the aim of capturing possible specificities involved on the local scale, the city of São Paulo and its Metropolitan Region (RMSP) will make up the case study. With this proposal, we aim to shed light on the tourism-finance nexus, highlighting the socio-spatial implications of this process.