Torre del Marqués and Mas de Llúcia welcomed students from the Master’s in Mountain Area Management at Rovira i Virgili University for a day of knowledge exchange focusing on rural development, wine tourism and future opportunities for the region.
We recently had the opportunity to welcome students from the Master’s in Mountain Area Management at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) in Tarragona to our premises, as part of an academic visit aimed at giving them a first-hand insight into our project and its links with the local area.
The day enabled the students to visit both Torre del Marqués Hotel Spa & Winery and Mas de Llúcia, and to gain an insight into a model that integrates hospitality, viticulture, wine tourism and heritage restoration from a perspective closely linked to the rural environment.
A project that has its roots in the local area and is growing from there
During the visit, we shared with the students our vision of the role that initiatives such as Torre del Marqués and Mas de Llúcia can play in rural and mountainous areas.
Beyond tourism and wine-growing, our aim is to help generate economic activity and employment, attract visitors keen to discover the region in a respectful manner, and promote its natural, cultural, agricultural and gastronomic heritage.
The visit proved particularly enriching due to the students’ background. Their studies are specifically geared towards analysing the challenges faced by mountain areas and exploring models capable of generating new development opportunities whilst preserving the identity and values unique to each region.
Wine tourism as a tool for rural development
A significant part of the meeting was devoted to wine tourism and wine culture as elements capable of linking agriculture, landscape, gastronomy, heritage and tourism.
The students’ backgrounds also enabled them to share experiences with a region such as Tarragona, where wine tourism plays a particularly significant role through wine-growing areas such as Priorat and Terra Alta.
This exchange gave us the opportunity to reflect on the links that exist on both sides of our regions and on the possibilities offered by a broader view of the wine-growing landscape. In this context, we also shared the project and vision regarding Matarraña’s wine-growing identity, as well as its potential to enhance the region’s profile and forge new connections with neighbouring regions with a rich winemaking tradition.
Sharing knowledge to build the future
For us, welcoming university students is also a way of contributing to the local area.
Opening the doors of Torre del Marqués and Mas de Llúcia to future professionals involved in the management of rural and mountain areas allows us to share what we have learnt during the course of the project, but also to hear new perspectives and reflect together on some of the major challenges facing these areas.
Collaboration between universities, businesses and the local community is particularly valuable when it enables academic knowledge to engage with real-world projects and, in turn, allows experiences gained on the ground to serve as a subject for study, reflection and inspiration.
We would like to thank the students and lecturers from the Master’s in Mountain Area Management at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili for their visit and their interest in our project.
We hope that this meeting will mark the beginning of new opportunities to share knowledge and continue to forge links between regions facing similar challenges, which see the landscape, agriculture, wine and responsible tourism as key tools for their future.
