Rene Mariaca - Fulbright NEXUS Scholar

Home Country: Bolivia

Grant Dates: 2012/2013

Rene Mariaca is a well-known academic and entrepreneur of the tourism sector in Bolivia. He has a B.S. in Management from the Catholic University of Bolivia and earned a Master's degree in Marketing from Complutense University of Madrid and a Master's in Higher Education Management from University of Alcala de Henares, also of Madrid. Since 2005, he has been serving at the Catholic University as a researcher and professor. He is Head of the Department of Tourism Management and is acting Dean. With more than ten years of practical experience in the tourism sector - hotel industry, tourism operations and travel agencies - he is a member of the Bolivian Chamber of Hotels, Association of Tourism Destination Management, Federation of Private Entrepreneurs of Bolivia.

Rene is concerned with the changing dynamics of rural tourism as well as with environmental issues and economic and social growth. He worked as a consultant for the Bolivian Government, local municipalities and for different NGOs, always focusing his work on sustainable tourism. Over the last years, he designed and led the first Master's Program in Tourism in the country. The key topics dealt with a sustainable approach to tourism, fostering specific approaches to effective research and investigation in the process. Since 2009, some important papers were written as consequence of his initiative; finally linking sustainable tourism with development projects became of scholarly importance in Bolivia.

Rene considers that under the spirit of sustainable tourism, many projects have been written and implemented in Bolivia, but none seems to consider climate change as fundamental. Starting 2011, a new research variable showed up in the tourism scenario: climate change. Through the NEXUS program Rene will explore “climate change and tourism.” The interdisciplinary work will seek to collaborate with counterparts to integrate knowledge from different fields into this new endeavor, with the local authorities as stakeholders, Rene hopes to contribute to the idea of research in this topic, so the CC variable could be considered in the coming projects, locally and internationally. In that way CC will not be a factor of surprise and the development projects will have the chance to plan their adaptation.