Mariana Calaça Baptista, studied architecture at the Lusíada University, and carried out her research for 6 years in the DGMEN at the Endangered Heritage Department. It was there that she lived closely the experience of the proximity to the national architectural heritage including the candidacies to UNESCO of Baixa Pombalina in Lisbon and city of Coimbra through University of Coimbra. She knows closely the history and heritage of the country and believes that it is with knowledge, that we are truly special.
During the economic crisis of 2008, she decided to leave Lisbon and went to the countryside to manage a Rural Tourism in Óbidos for 5 years. There she learned the great passion that foreigners have for Portugal (She usually feels that she travelled around the world several times without leaving that single Manor House). She also specialized in ISCTE in Entrepreneurship in Cultural and Landscape Tourism winning an award in entrepreneurship with the project PLAYWEST, a mobile app project that promotes touristic sites. In 2014 she started to work closer to cultural associations and went to the academia again, when she decided to create her own project as www.marianacalacabaptista.pt.
During this new challenge she participated in the production of several projects as a cultural manager and she had the chance to coordinate the Royal Escapade 2017 for the Versailles Foundation in New York, Caldas Creative Tourism at CREATOUR in 2017, Vouzela Raiz in 2019 and CES Summer School in Caldas da Rainha She is Secretary of the Board at Centro Portugal Film Commission since 2021 and she is also a regular contributor to Moondo Magazine https://ilmondonuovo.club/imn2023
To this day she collaborates with several entities and is a consultant in the areas of Heritage, Communication Tourism and Culture having as main challenge the Co-Direction of ART&TUR International Tourism Film Festival, Centro Portugal Film Commission and the coordination of by.Vouzela a social collaborative upcycling initiative, based on the textile industry of Vouzela, Viseu, Portugal.