HR4RS stamp
Jaime Riveiro Fernandez
As every year, REDINTUR, an organization made up of almost thirty Spanish universities that offer postgraduate degrees in Tourism, including the URJC, has held a Forum to award an extraordinary distinction to the two best works at a national level that try this field. In this context, the TFM entitled "Tourism in Baiona de Galicia: the birth of the local tourism sector and the establishments of the Golden Age" and carried out by Víctor Miguel Fernández, current predoctoral researcher at the URJC, has been selected as one of the the 8 best in the X Forum REDINTUR.
In the same way, he has been the only student from the Community of Madrid to reach this position. “I think it is a recognition of the great effort made during a whole year to the research work in my field, in this case, Tourism. Undoubtedly, this recognition is not only for me, but for the entire research community of the Rey Juan Carlos University and, especially, for historical-tourism studies, since this type of work does not usually stand out as much today as the that have a more analytical-practical or managerial nature”, explains Miguel.
"Tourism in Baiona de Galicia: the birth of the local tourism sector and the establishments of the Golden Age"
His research revolves around the Local History of Tourism, in this case, of the town of Baiona, in Pontevedra, the mother town of the finalist. It seeks to know the origins, touristically speaking, of the village, since neither the current management nor the future planning of Tourism in Baiona can be understood if the beginnings are not dealt with first. “Research in this type of field can help to act on the destination itself in time, since its tourist tradition is the basis that allows us to understand the current situation of that specific place and to be able to plan it for the future in the best possible way. ; minimizing the impacts in a situation like the current one”, explains Miguel. However, the study of the historical evolution of traditional tourist destinations is not usually a very popular field in tourism research, even though it is "a great source of tourist information with endless applications," says Miguel. In addition, the current health situation due to the pandemic has shown that instability in the sector continues to exist.
In this sense, the researcher assures that the work will have an academic place for both future tourism experts and historians. “In my research, for example, beyond hotel evolution, I have discovered the existence of great professionals such as Remigio Eloy, Anunciada Fernández or Juan Saavedra who had an exemplary career and who are a benchmark for the Spanish tourism community, and more in these times of uncertainty in the sector. It is a generation in which tourism represented the full dedication of their lives at such a commendable level that they managed to position Baiona at the top of the national and international tourism scene... Learning from them is key to the new tourism model that must be implanted in Spain from now on in the post-COVID19 era”, says Miguel. To carry out the study, Víctor Miguel consulted the historical press and the primary sources collected in Archives or Libraries, however, due to the irremediable passage of time, there is a lot of information that has been lost and tourist references from the end of the XNUMXth century and the first third of the XNUMXth century have been gradually and unfairly forgotten.
The idea for this Master's Thesis comes directly from his Final Degree Project in Tourism. “I wanted to develop as a theme a Strategic Tourism Plan for Baiona entitled 'Tourism in Baiona de Galicia: Horizon 2050', aimed at sustainability, self-efficiency and the climate crisis”, explains Miguel. To carry it out he would have to deal with the history of destiny, but not being able to delve so deep at that time, he decided to continue this line of research in his future projects.
Something similar happens again when deciding the theme for the TFM, since the initial idea was “to be able to develop all the tourist evolution of Baiona and its elements. Shortly after and after speaking with my tutor, Nuria Morère, professor of Ancient History at the URJC, we saw that it was an overwhelming subject and it was decided to opt only for the brief study of the origins of the town and the evolution of the local hotel sector in a specific stage of history”, confesses Miguel. During the development of the research, they mainly went to primary sources for data collection, which became a problem when, at a certain point in the pandemic, it became impossible to go to Libraries or Archives.
Finalist in the X REDINTUR Forum
Looking ahead to the X REDINTUR Forum that was held this year at the CETT-UB in Barcelona, the Direction of the Master in International Tourism Management is in charge of proposing the best TFMs to represent the URJC in the contest. “Subsequently, a summary must be made based on the announcement of the contest. Once sent and accepted, a committee of evaluators is in charge of reviewing the works in pairs and selecting the 8 best ones, as has been my case among almost forty works presented by the universities that make up REDINTUR”, comments Miguel. Already within the competition, in addition to the extraordinary distinctions to the best two, the rest of the contestants were also awarded the respective diplomas accrediting the distinction at a national level. The eight finalists are also rewarded with the opportunity to publish their TFM as an article in a scientific journal.
Today, Víctor Miguel Fernández is pursuing a Doctorate in Tourism and with his thesis he intends to close the cycle of his research with all content that he could not previously include in his TFG or in his TFM. “The URJC, according to the rankings, is the second best Spanish university and the first in the Community of Madrid to study Tourism. In their subjects, teachers always try to give us good tips and recommendations to develop a good TFG or TFM and, of course, most of the success in achieving our goals depends on us, the students”, concludes Miguel.