ST academic swaps British winter with busy schedule in warm Brazil

Dr. Miguel Moital, Senior Lecturer in Events Management in the School of Tourism, is currently visiting Brazil to speak at three universities. The trip started with a keynote speech at the II Scientific Forum of Gastronomy, Tourism and Hospitality organised by UNIVALI – Itajai Valley University, Santa Catarina state. His presentation on “Innovation in gastronomic events: developing creative proposals using supply mapping” closed the Forum. The keynote presentation builds partially on the material developed for the Event & Leisure Innovation unit that Miguel has lead at BU for 7 years. The audience consisted of undergraduate and postgraduate students, academic staff as well as tourism professionals.

Besides his keynote speech, Miguel lead two research workshops for masters and doctoral tourism students which focused on defining the scope of the research. He also met the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Post-Graduate Research where the development of a MoU between BU and UNIVALI was discussed. UNIVALI is the leading tourism post-graduate education provider in Brazil, offering the highest ranked Masters in tourism and one of the only two doctoral programmes in tourism available in the country.

In his second stop, Miguel will deliver a guest lecture at UNIRIO – Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, whose campus sits next to the Sugar Loaf attraction. His third and final stop involves delivering two guest lectures at UFRN – Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in Natal, north-east Brazil. UFRN also has a leading role in tourism post-graduate studies, offering a Masters in tourism (there are only 8 in Brazil) and the other of the two doctoral programmes in tourism. BU is developing closer ties with UFRN, with one of its tourism academics coming to Bournemouth for her post-doctoral study, which will be supported by Miguel and Dr. Luciana Esteves from the Faculty of Applied Sciences.