TOURISM AND COUCHSURFING: UNDERSTANDING OF NETWORK AMBASSADORS ON TOURISM AND MOTIVATION OF SURFERS

Abstract

This article aims to identify and analyze the understanding that the group of ambassadors of the Couchsurfing Brazil network presents about tourism and motivations of tourists in the network´s context. It should be noted that ambassadors are the users who best express the values of the network itself, which defends a better world by sharing experiences, stories and even the home. In this sense, Couchsurfing is one of the icons of the so-called shared economy. In the methodology, the statements of the ambassadors, collected via Google questionnaire, were analyzed from the hermeneutics and the Bakhtinian enunciative line. The results, in relation to the ambassadors’ understanding of tourism on the network, indicate that these users positively distinguish the tourism that is provided by the network (the idea of experience is marked), in opposition to mass tourism, which It is made by those who are not users of the platform. In relation to the interviewees, the motivations manifest sadness when noting that many are resorting to the Internet only as an alternative to free hosting.