Sustainable development – from a local to a European perspective

Second Transnational Exchange

Seia - Portugal

May 8th - 14th 2016

“The traditional house and sustainable development”

This theme was selected after we came across some of the problems in our region, which are:

Low agriculture profit. The closure of a large number of textile factories. The lack of investments that can help the economy

grow. The economic and financial crisis that our country is

going through. The lack of jobs opportunities.

The population has migrated and villages are becoming deserted.

“Does the preservation of the traditional houses contribute to a sustainable development?”

We considered that maybe the traditional houses would contribute to the improvement of our current situation, so we came across a main question for our research:

Does the traditional house have any touristic value?

We created several questions and possible solutions concerning the problem under study.

We came up with a questionnaire to be answered by people who have traditional houses associated with rural tourism.

We wanted to characterize the sample through the different ages and studies that each person/owner had.

1- Type of building:

1.1- Approximate area of the house1.2- Building Material

2- Location of the construction: Village / Isolated (farm)

4- Is the income provided by the touristic houses enough for their owners to live only on it? Yes / No

4.1- If not, what is/are the reason/s?

3- The owners live :

In the houseOther house, in the same villageIn another village

5- What type of changes/repairs has the owner been doing in the house?

Maintenance work Restoration work Solar panels placement Double glass windows placement Improvement of the rainwaters usage system Placement of “eco-friendly”/water saving taps LED illumination placement Introduction of thermal insulation on the roof Introduction of thermal insulation on the walls Placement of water saving toilets Introduction of waste separation system

6- Is it easy for the owner to rent their house?

Yes / No

7- What is the feedback given by the visitors? (beauty / comfort)

8- What is the visitors’ opinion on the house surroundings?

9- How would you rate the region infrastructures? Very Good Good Satisfactory Bad Terrible

10- What do you think it is missing in this place that could increase tourism?

11-Would you say that having traditional houses is important for the different regions? Yes / No

11.1- Why?

After analyzing the data already obtained from the questionnaires we can already say that: - The people who develop this

kind of business have, in general, high academic studies.

- They all value the preservation of small villages because that makes their business more well-known and appealing to tourists.

- The income they get from this houses is enough to keep them “working” and open, but they aren’t able to make a living with that profit, they usually have another job.

Collaborated: Maria MiguelMaria MonteiroPedro DinisAna ClaraFrancisca AlbuquerqueBeatriz BritoCarolina SaraivaRafael PinaBernardo AlmeidaMarta NolascoJoão BernardoDiogo VidasJoana SantosCristiana CorreiaDiana FigueiredoBernardo AlbanoDiogo Ferreira