The Creative Tourism Network had the honor to intervene in the event ‘Connecting Cultures and Nature: Sustainable Tourism Initiatives from Brazil and the European Union’, organized on September 18 in Belém, by the Delegation of the European Union to Brazil, as part of the G20 program.
Brazilian and European experts highlighted how innovative forms of intelligent, creative, and experiential tourism can promote the environmental, cultural, and social sustainability of communities.
With COP30 approaching, which will be hosted in Belém in 2025, the Amazonian city has become a strategic stage for debating and implementing tourism practices that not only attract visitors but also respect and preserve the environment and local cultures.
The executive secretary of the Ministry of Tourism, Ana Carla Machado Lopes, opened the event by emphasizing the importance of integrated actions to transform Belém into a sustainable tourist destination that becomes an example to the world.
Marlene Bartes, director of policy at the European Commission, spoke about the importance of making tourism greener, focusing on the three dimensions of sustainability: environmental, economic and social.
The idea is to go beyond the basics – accommodation and food – and create a dimension that is associated with the economy of experiences.
Following this approach of giving emotional meaning to traveling, Caroline Couret, director of the Creative Tourism Network, presented the advantages of creative tourism as an alternative that suits various types of destinations of all kind, from typical French villages like Anduze, to other European destinations like Charentes, Louvre-Lens, Loulé, Barcelos o Barcelona, among many others.
This type of tourism offers visitors the opportunity to develop their creativity by interacting with the locals and customs of a destination. It’s vocational tourism, based on personal passions and interests.’
As Stephanie Horel, program officer for the Delegation of the European Union to Brazil, rightly pointed out, Belém has everything to offer intelligent, creative, and experiential tourism. ‘Nature, culture, music, gastronomy. Belém has to be proud of what it has to offer the world because it’s something very special that only exists here.’!
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