Cafés especiais e turismo rural: o Roteiro Caminho dos Cafés das Mulheres do Norte Pioneiro do Paraná

In Brazil, coffee represents an important economic sector and an opportunity to integrate tourism and agriculture in an innovative way. The “Women's Coffee Route” is an example of this integration. The aim of this article is to verify, through exploratory and descriptive research, with a quantitative and qualitative approach, the adequacy of the route to the expectations of tourists and to identify potential improvements that would increase its attractiveness. Using a bibliographic analysis and an online questionnaire (107 respondents by non-probabilistic sampling), it was possible to investigate tourism combined with coffee production in Brazil and the tourism potential of the Norte Pioneiro region, highlighting the quality of the coffee produced by family coffee growers. The results show that although 83.2% of respondents had never visited a coffee route, more than 66% enjoy traveling in rural or natural areas, and the majority were interested in visiting such routes, motivated by tasting local products. As for the “Women's Coffee Route”, 99% of those who had never visited it expressed an interest in getting to know it. The research indicates the need for an effective marketing strategy to attract this potential audience and resolve any dissatisfaction. The route, like others in the country, is in line with the trends of the third wave of coffee, bringing consumers and producers closer together and strengthening rural tourism as a vector for economic and social development.