Q &A TRAVEL, CULTURE AND OTHER OPPORTUNITIES IN BRAZIL: WITH ALICE MORAIS FROM VIAJECER

With the result of changing perceptions altering the demands of the travel industry, Viajecer, a tour operator in Brazil, meets these needs through providing an excellent combination of transformative and sustainable trips with social elements, culture, nature and history to increase travelers’ level of awareness about the places they are visiting. Viajecer’s proposal is ‘to travel differently’ and by providing a large variety of experiences to several different orientations of travelers, everyone is able to maximize their enjoyment of the destinations and escape from the traditional/mainstream travel itineraries, which are usually provided. Our team at Ravel were so happy to interview Alice Morais, the CEO of Viajecer, to gain better understanding of Viajecer’s operations and experiences but furthermore their vision for the future, to continue growing while the travel industry begins to bloom again!

“I have seen that you have a background in advertising and communications - I am just therefore curious 1 as to how you got into your current role as CEO and why do you enjoy this field of work that you are doing?”

“I have been working within the communications and advertising industry for a long time - about 15 years and my experience of working with travel professionally began 3 years ago. I have continuously loved it and have felt a lot of passion for this field of work which is why I decided to create Viajecer in 2020. I believe I have a different vision about travel and tourism, moreover there needs to be more importance placed on the initiatives of sustainability”.

2“Viajecer builds sustainable and transformative trips with social activities, culture, history and nature to increase people’s levels of awareness. In your opinion, how important do you think it is to include all these different senses in a trip? Are there more people willing to try out all these different things and aspects during their travels?”

“I think travelers need to understand their host, and to appreciate who they really are. Through the travel we provide we can show what there really is offer and see, especially with cultural aspects.” “There is an area called Xingu, an indigineous territory. There are 16 different ethnical groups in this same area and they all speak different languages. I think if people could visit here and experience these different ways of living, they will see and appreciate different ways of life and how others live.”

3“Due to the pandemic, traveling has slowed down and declined. But do you think that prior to this there was a real concern with the effects of over tourism and too many travelers in destinations causing issues such as pollution, overcrowding and damaging nature?”

“With regards to sustainability there is a very different vision now. Also about ecotourism as we are working with ecotourism and during the pandemic we were able/ managed to get around the effects of the pandemic in different ways. But I think the pandemic did successfully bring a different view to people about nature and our surroundings”.

4“Out of the different trips and travel opportunities that Viajecer has completed and done, which out of all the cases has been really important/ something that you would recommend?”

“These people have a different way of living and from experiencing their culture I am also able to see life with a different perspective. There are a lot of things to learn from these people, from aspects such as their contact with nature or even just their way of life which is a lot simpler but this is okay”. “I think we created an idea that we need a lot of things in our life to support us.”

5“Following your efforts in Paranaguá, there has been a great visitation plan for tourists for 2022 and also the production and distribution of a web series with 3 episodes. Can you confirm that your publicity and promotion of these places greatly improves the tourism in these areas?”

“After visitation the content is captured through video and photos which is put together for promotional purposes.”

“Regions such as Paranaguá have a large variety of cultural experiences on offer such as museums but they are not so visited. According to Alice; “we have to increase the promotion of places that are not so known yet”. In comparison there are so many places and areas in Brazil which are overcrowded and full of tourists which in some cases might cause the areas to lose their identities furthermore in some cases the destination might not be able to properly deal with the pure amount of visitors. And yet instead there are still so many beautiful places and regions that are still not known or visited which are just as beautiful and unique as the traditional destinations in Brazil. These other places ought to be promoted and advertised to allow people to visit and explore them which would benefit the communities here whilst also drawing away some crowds from the overcrowded destinations that are simply too full.”

6“Now that the pandemic is slowly starting to decline, what do you think the future of travel will look like? What are your visions for Viajecer’s future?

“I think travel will be more and more conscious and there will be a greater focus on nature as more people want contact with nature during their travels. I am happy with this as I think the rise in conscious tourism is a wonderful thing, so I think this kind of travel opportunities will increase in popularity. I also believe there might be more exchange opportunities within the country - such as exchange of cultures and knowledge between the citizens of Brazil, “For exchange opportunities there are lots of platforms and social media to allow this to happen. Our generation is very dependent on technology and being online and so we ought to do something with this - to use all this technology and connections to our use. We are lucky to have all this and we should use it to our advantage”.