On July 27th, Lab2PT/IN2PAST doctoral student Cátia Alexandra Pereira Faria defended his thesis, entitled “Assessment of the impacts of the designation of Creative City and Creative Tourism as a factor of innovation and development in the municipality of Barcelos”, supervised by Professores Paula Cristina Almeida Cadima Remoaldo, Juliana Araújo Alves e Hélder Tiago da Silva Lopes.

 

Tourism has contributed to the development of creative cities and territories. Through this premise, we propose, in this project, to address a current issue that are the impacts (in the main dimensions) of the designation, in 2017 by UNESCO, of the Barcelos Creative City and propose new creative activities having underlying the segment of Creative Tourism. This segment has appeared, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, as a path to innovation and to a more sustainable development of the territories, namely the Portuguese ones. It will also be important to understand the role of women, who can act as facilitators in the creation of employment opportunities and better working conditions. In methodological terms the research will be developed taking into account a mixed type approach, using primary and secondary sources. An innovative aspect will be the creation of an Advisory Board from the beginning of the Project, which will allow for a more sustained contribution to the achievement of the outlined objectives and for a more participative and collaborative planning. With the support of Barcelos City Hall, the results will contribute to a better understanding of how to make tourism more sustainable.

 

Congratulations to Dr. Cátia Faria!