Author: Antonella Grana

It was late six years ago. Where are we Today?

Not much seems to have changed in the last 6 years. On 29 October 2018, storm Vaia felled 14 million trees in the Alps. It was only the first of many extreme events which, especially in the past two years, have devastated not only our country, but the entire planet with increasing frequency. The wettest, driest year, the warmest, coldest in the last 20 years. This is what we hear almost every day in the news. We hear it so much that we hardly pay attention to it anymore, as if this type of information has now become part of the daily “background noise”.

Five years ago, almost exactly one year after Vaia, we met to take stock of the situation during the event “Ci vuole un Fiore – 100 ore per l’ambiente. We spent five days in conferences, connecting with other people and in cleaning activities. From those five days our Quaderno 11 was born: Quaderno 11: “È già tardi? Ci vuole un fiore – 100 ore per l’ambiente”

Today we begin by sharing one of the articles in the Quaderno, linked to the environment through the world of Google Maps Local Guides and the technological tools connected to it.

Is it worth “Cleaning the world?”

Technological tools – brief introduction

My personal approach, and then that of Progetto Re-Cycle, to the digital technology of Google Maps, was born after the 2016 earthquake in Marche, Umbria and Lazio. We were looking for a tool that would allow us to interact / integrate with the territory, and to disseminate information in a visual way. Hence the choice to join the Local Guides community, where we can interact directly with Google. We do not work for Google, but we use its tools (accessible to everyone) and propose improvements, which are sometimes accepted.

Continuie reading It was late six years ago here

TOURISM 20.0 School, tourism, territory is the full title of the event, which will take place on May 21st in Zero Branco in the province of Treviso. It is included in the ASviS Festival for Sustainable Development 2024

We will present – yes… once again – one of our favorite subjects: sustainable tourism. The setting will be the beautiful scenario of Villa Guidini

The event is the final part of the Turistico 20.0 pilot project, a sustainable tourism project which aims to enhance the province territory and connect the North and South of the country, also involving our future tourism operators: male and female students of tourist schools.

The program

The event will be held in Italian.

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Turistico 20.0 – tourism from schools to the territory – is the title of a project aimed at the Tourism Professionals of Tomorrow. In this very first phase it has involved 6 schools and two municipalities between Calabria and Veneto.

Turistico 20.0 is a sustainable tourism project that aims to enhance the whole territory of the peninsula and connect the North and South of Italy. An idea by Aida Marketing & Formazione, Paesi e Poesie, and, last but not least, Progetto Re-Cycle

As Progetto Re-Cycle we intend to interact with students and strengthen their knowledge of sustainable and inclusive tourism. In our case we can add digitalization as an extra value with  Accessible Life project by our Ermes Tuon. The Tourism Professionals of Tomorrow are the heart of Turistico 20.0. Last October, after a presentation webinar, the students who participated were asked to fill out a questionnaire. The purpose of the questionnaire is to understand their opinions and habits about tourism. We have collected all the data  and you can find the results HERE.

Tourism, people, training is the introduction to our Q17 “School, professions and tourism trends” available from October here

Training

There is a urgent need to strengthen training, nowadays funded training is of crucial importance. I have more than 25 years of experience in the sector, I know something about it, having held multiple roles. What have we done? I would say the most positive point is undoubtedly that talking about training, even in small companies, is no longer a taboo and believe me it is no small step. What do we have to do? A lot and here I go by bullet list: […]

People or lemons to squeeze? Leila’s story in Venice

Leila is a fictional name, but she represents a real person, or better to say, several people – all women – who spent a day in Venice. This is already a bad start, as they represent the tourist type that isn’t exactly well received in the lagoon city. They are those of “hit and run” tourism, the ones who go to the supermarket and prepare sandwiches which they will then eat somewhere. Maybe, while eating, somebody will tell them “Venice is not Disneyland”. It’s a shame as that these people approached the city with great respect, they tried to visit as many things as possible, but their expectations were not met. Queues everywhere, skyrocketing prices and non-existent services […]

Continue reading “Tourism, people, training” here

ris For all Quaderni published by il prato click here

Human landscape: used or participated? by Antonella Grana is the fifth article in our Quaderno 16 “Human landscapes, urban landscapes” available from this link in July

This Quaderno takes me back a recent past, a past that I would call pre-Covid on one hand and post-earthquake on the other. December 10th, 2016, van loaded with everything we managed to collect with donations, 5 in the morning, direction Norcia. There is a lot of ice at that time of the morning (night?). We have a long way to run with a lot of detours because the earthquake that hit central Italy, first in August and then in October, did not spare the road network. Emanuele Persiani, the author of the first article of this Quaderno, is waiting for us.

As Emanuele tells us in his article, the earthquake has changed the landscape of the area forever. Streams, such as the Torbidone, have given birth to a sort of lake, human settlements have expanded creating dormitories where the SAE – Emergency Housing Solutions, have been built. […]

[…] The participated human landscape is what is missing. An active and lively community makes a participated human landscape. A community that makes proposals even when nothing is asked. Well, this is my hope, and not only for Norcia, for all of us: a shared human landscape. It’s also up to us to make a move.

Continue reading “Human landscape: used or participated?” here

“Tourist or traveler” introduction to Quaderno 14

There is a quote taken from a book that I love – The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles – saying:

“We’re probably the first tourists they’ve had since the war.

Tunner, we’re not tourists. We’re travelers.
Oh. What’s the difference?
A tourist is someone who thinks about going home the moment they arrive, Tunner.
Whereas a traveler might not come back at all.”

The novel is not a novel on tourism, for sure, but the point is: what do we want to be? A tourist or a traveller? What do we want to learn from our travelling?

Continue reading on the Italian version