13th and 14th May 2016 Visiting Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
While in Rio de Janeiro, our NHTV team had two full days of activities. Friday morning we went to the Federal Fluminense University UFF – LATEC (laboratory of technology, governance and environment ) for a meeting with professor Osvaldo Quelhas, professor Marcelo Meirino and professor Sergio França. Besides having a large experience in system management and people management, innovation and sustainability Latec has a large number of MBA education (http://www.latec.uff.br/mba/) We discussed about having publications together as well as developing some open courses in which LATEC could offer to their students an experience to be in The Netherlands.
In the afternoon we went to a different University – Unirio, interested in what we have to offer as a quality mark: Imagineering, experience design and destination management. The professor Michelle Cristina Sampaio organized an evening event for us to present our University as well as Imagineering as a Design methodology. Unirio is starting new professional masters in Eco-Tourism and this is a great moment to cooperate together.
On Saturday morning Michelle brought us to Silva Jardim, a city located around 100 km from the city of Rio where the Atlantic rain forest is situated. This is a protected area and there is a farm – Santo Antonio dos Cordeiros – that is starting to develop sustainable rural tourism. The farm produces coffee and cassava flour, has a nursery garden for the Atlantic forest and are part of the Mico Leão Dourado (gold lion tamarin) corridor. We were really well received by Ana and Airton and we spent the day visiting the farm, eating the local food and dialoguing with them about possible collaborations in the place. This local initiative could be a good start of sharing and co-creating knowledge about a sustainable destination.