Take inspiration from the case of the Algarve for future ideas for developing the tourism sector. This is the objective of the visit that Brazilian municipalities and other Latin American countries are making until this Friday, March 22, to Portugal and which includes conversations with tourism agents and investors.
This exchange is taking place within the scope of the project “Inova Juntos – Triangular Urban Cooperation for Innovation and Sustainability”, financed by the European Union and coordinated by the National Confederation of Municipalities (Brazil), the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra and the Workshop association, which focuses on the themes of participatory democracy and the planning and evaluation of public policies.
One of the highlights was the opening of the exhibition “Innovation and Sustainability”, at Galeria ARCO, in Faro, made up of augmented reality postcards, referring to good practices shared by Portuguese entities.
On the sidelines of the inauguration, Nelson Dias, founding member of Associação Oficina, explained that this visit's main theme is tourism.
«There are a large number of municipalities that have chosen this as an area to develop and are working on their first tourist products. Therefore, they chose the main tourist region in the country [the Algarve] to find out how this can be worked on», he added.
The list of meetings and visits included, for example, structures such as Rota Vicentina, Via Algarviana, Algarve Tourism Region and Tertúlia Algarvia.
The program also included trips to Loulé and Tavira, as well as a meeting with private investors.
For Maurício Zanin, coordinator of the National Confederation of Municipalities [Brazil], there was a “need to work” in the area of tourism.
«We had the Algarve as a reference as a center of excellence. There are certain operational bottlenecks that have to be resolved. For example, we want to understand how we should act to avoid the concentration of tourists in one phase", he considered.
In the Algarve, there are municipalities from various parts of Brazil: Belém, Santarém, Barcarena, Goiás, São Bento do Sul or Águas da Prata.
Despite ending in November, the objective is to continue with the good practices of “InovaJuntos”.
«We want to continue, in the future, not only as a network, but also as institutional exchange partners», he said.
Furthermore, for May, a meeting is scheduled in Brasília to close a project, the balance of which is, so far, very positive.
«We have already made 42 cooperation agreements, in various areas such as the economy, entrepreneurship, climate change. Now, we are sure that tourism has all the conditions to also be a topic worked on in this cooperation", he concluded.
Watch the interview with Nelson Dias:
Comments