IBIMA Publishing

Enhancing Tourism through Viticulture Enterprises in Douro Region: The Inov@Douro Model

Carlos Filipe Campos Rompante da Cunha, Emanuel Soares Peres Correia,
Raul Manuel Pereira Morais dos Santos, and Manuel José Cabral dos Santos Reis
Volume 2010 (2010), Article ID 985461, Communications of the IBIMA, 14 pages.

Abstract

This paper describes a business and technological model proposal, known as Inov@Douro, intended to support and to promote competitive and sustained precision agriculture practices in the Portuguese Douro Region. Our approach is based on a distributed cooperative network, tailored to meet the specific needs of viticulture enterprises which also explore tourism as a valuable national and international business source. We present the Inov@Douro model from the knowledge generation point-of-view, intended to support the multidisciplinary concept of a cooperation approach among regional partners. This model aims to represent a new working style for this unique region. As a guideline to attain the implementation of such a model, information technology and infrastructures tools are discussed in order to promote precision agriculture practices while giving valuable and dynamic tourist information to the general public.