The Brazilian international tourism promotion agency, Embratur, announced the creation of the first Embratur Lab, a development and innovation center applied to tourism, with the aim of promoting competitiveness and environmental sustainability in the sector's services.
“The city of Rio de Janeiro was chosen to start this project because it has a wide range of services related to tourism, from holding large events to urban ecotourism in our mountains and forests; from religious tourism to festive tourism. It will be our first large laboratory to test innovations that will be used in tourist destinations throughout Brazil”, highlighted the president of Embratur, Marcelo Freixo.
The Embratur head said that after the consolidation of the first unit in Rio, other nuclei will be opened in different cities of the country, in partnership with the private sector.
"Our goal is to use technology to improve the experience of international tourists in Brazil. To achieve this, we are going to convene and support start-ups so that they use Rio de Janeiro as a space for experimentation with these new technological solutions. We want to transform Rio in a large technology laboratory for tourism”, affirmed the person in charge of Embratur Lab, Roberto Gevaerd.
The new center will have as a partner Turistech Hub Brasil, a center with similar purposes based in São Paulo. Its first objective is to organize a data bank so that companies in the tourism sector can identify consumer trends and behaviors and customize their offers based on public demand.
It will also be a priority to develop green technology solutions that help reduce the carbon footprint of tourism, including the use of renewable energy, the implementation of sustainable practices in hotels and the promotion of responsible tourism practices.
As part of its strategy to incorporate technology to promote Brazil internationally, last week in Portugal Freixo signed an alliance with Viajes El Corte Inglés (the travel agency of the Spanish department store group), to include Brazil in its new virtual reality platform (metaverse). Thus, the tourist services sales company will include Brazilian destinations in its virtual reality platform, which consumers access with glasses and digital remote controls.