The environmental hiking guides is the second article of our Q17 “School, professions and tourism trends” available from October here
The activities of environmental guides in the Sibillini Mountains and Valnerina
I think that we must love Nature , understand and above all respect it. This is why – combined with the desire to get people talking about my territory – in 2019 I started the journey to become an environmental hiking guide. Before telling you about my activities, however, I would like to explain what a GAE is and what he/she does.
Environmental guides (GAE) are professionals who lead people on excursions and in various outdoor activities. However, they don’t just do this.
The tasks of a GAE can be very varied and differ from guide to guide, from territory to territory. In addition to being a guide on a trail, they can provide naturalistic, historical and cultural information at the same time.
Continue reading “The environmental hiking guides ” here
Is tourism a bad guy or a good guy? by Lucia Ammendolia is the third article in our Quaderno Q17 School, professions and trends in tourism” available from this link in October
“Work organization requires more motivation than control, more creativity than bureaucracy, more ethics than cunning, more aesthetics than practice, more life-time balance than overtime, multitasking and availability.”
Domenico De Masi
Increasing numbers of arrivals
This year we have witnessed a strong increase in arrivals in Italy. On September 1, 2023, the data from the Territorial Observatory on national and international tourist flows were presented in Venice. Italy is the fourth most popular destination for European tourists, who invest 12% of total spending in our Bel Paese. Germany, Switzerland, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands represent the largest flow of foreign tourists to Italy. Only in July did Italy overtake Spain and Great Britain. (source immobiliare.it)
Decrease in domestic tourism
Unfortunately, the bad news is that domestic tourism has struggled to take off. Yet it should be the “treasure” of the sector because it is protected from any variables that nowadays easily affect foreign tourism. Furthermore, this type of tourism, prefers less travelled national locations. This could be seen last year, with an increase in presences in many areas of the South
Young professionals and work
There are many Italians who were unable to take a holiday in 2023 or preferred cheaper destinations. Inflation, increasing prices , wages, which have remained frozen for years, no longer offer a secure economic base. Even if there is a lot of demand for work, especially in the catering and accommodation services sector, there are many young people from North to South who do not even respond to the request. Sometimes there is a feeling that young Italians do not want to make sacrifices, but the phenomenon of “great resignation”, already known in the USA, is rapidly expanding in Europe too […] Continue reading “Is tourism a bad guy or a good guy” here
New tourism and new learning in the tourism sector by Chiara Ceccon (teacher of tourism at ITSET A. Martini Castelfranco Veneto -TV-)is the first article in our Quaderno 17 “School, professions and trends in tourism” available from this link in October
At the end of the pandemic crisis, with all its consequences, from the reorganization of teaching to compulsory training for teachers in the field of new digital technologies, secondary schools have to face new challenges to keep up with the times and with changes in the world of work.
As a teacher of a fundamental subject in tourism, corporate tourism disciplines, I realized that the tourism sector has speeded up times in an almost uncontrollable way; in fact, it is well known that tourist flows in the Italian and international markets have recovered post-pandemic at exponential rates compared to the pre-Covid-19 period.
A demonstration of this fact is that travel agencies, especially online tour operators, have increased or changed their mission, starting from “proximity tourism” and moving towards the so-called “experiential tourism”, requested by most of the tourist demand. This is also due to revenge tourism, i.e., the desire for revenge and the increased propensity to travel after the restrictions. The accommodation facilities have also been renewed, thanks to the possibility of taking advantage of tax incentives and the offer has also been enriched with new proposals in the food and wine sector. […]
Continue reading “New tourism and new learning in the tourism sector” here
Human landscape: used or participated? by Antonella Granais 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
“The environmental side of the NRRP: policies with (little) territory“ by Alessandro Boldo is the fourth article in our Quaderno 16 “Human landscapes, urban landscapes” available from this link in July
1. NRRP and the environment
The National Recovery and Resilience Plan, temporarily loosening budgetary constraints to 2026, should guarantee the implementation of those structural reforms capable of reactivating the country’s development within the Next Generation Eu scheme and in turn in the new paradigm of the European Green Deal (EGD).
Next Generation EU has allocated 37% of 800MM€ to support objectives of the EGD, of which a significant part to the implementation of the Italian NRRP, with the ambitious goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050 and reducing climate-changing emissions by 55 % compared to the 1990 scenario by 2030.
With reference to the transition, Italy is the largest beneficiary in absolute terms, with 70 MM€ compared to 27 in Spain, 18 in France. In relative terms, Italy allocates the minimum to the transition: 37% against 40% in Spain, 46% in France, 42% in Germany, 59% in Austria.
2. Which transition?
Transition is already present in the major European strategies of the last 20 years, the ‘Lisbon Strategy’ and ‘Europe 2020’. As noted by Schunz (2022) the term transition in the former is associated with structural reforms of the knowledge-based type to enable the economic dynamism and competitiveness of the Eurozone. In the second, interventions of a purely economic nature shift the policy focus on the mitigation of the effects induced by financial crises, that of sovereign debts, adding two new areas of interest: digitization and climate change. […] Continue reading “The environmental side of the NRRP: policies with (little) territory” here
“The landscape along the footprints of the Lion of Venice” by Lucia Ammendolia is the third article in Quaderno 16 “Human landscapes, urban landscapes” available from this link in July
Courtesy of Philippe Apatie
The first reaction we have when thinking of the word landscape, or panorama which is its amplified extension, is something external to us, a postcard view, something abstract, which we can only grasp through a single sense, the view. Instead, it is something much more complex. Let’s think, for example, of the “soundscape”, given by the set of acoustic elements that compose it, like the sound of the bells in an old village or the cicadas in a mountain meadow. The place, in addition to the physiocratic aspect, also expresses its identity through the sounds of the environment.
“Il paesaggio era come un verso di poesia che crea sé stesso” (The landscape was like a line of poetry creating itself) (Corrado Alvaro)
The term LANDSCAPE derives from country, from the Latin pagus (= village); hence the adjective pagensis which means “the space around an agricultural village”.
This concept stands out even more in the term landscape. According to one of the fathers of the “Convention of the landscape”, the French geographer Yves Luginbuhl, this term is composed of land (earth) and schaft (to transform, model) therefore spaces of territories in continuous construction and consequent interaction between human being and nature. All this highlights the natural correlation between the territory and its anthropic part. Within the landscape, human being is not a mere observer but, quoting Jacob, he/she is an “active inhabitant”.
There are different ways of relating to the landscape, every people define and shape the context through their own experiences, lived in relation to it. This concept is summed up in a single word that we usually use: culture. Its etymology derives from the Latin “cultura” which means to cultivate, to honor the earth, from which lessons are learned. Landscape is a complex cultural process.
Continue reading The landscape along the footprints of the Lion of Venicehere
“The territory is not a map and the map is not the territory” by Roberto Ervas is the second article in Quaderno 16 “Human landscapes, urban landscapes” available from this link in July
We can compare the territorial body to the biological body.
In the territorial body agricultural and/or open areas, residential and productive infrastructures, infrastructures of energy, water, data services, etc., road and/or transport infrastructures, such as carriageways, railways, air, sea, cycle, and pedestrian ways coexist.
In addition to this, cognitive, relational, biological, social, anthropological, cultural, etc. “networks” exist and operate in the territory.
All this demonstrates that territorial dynamics are multidimensional, integrated and complex phenomena.[…]
The territorial body cannot stand on the anthropic-entropic dimension alone and compared to the biological body the prevalence of structures and/or organs leads to its death and/or dysfunction,
There is now a quantity of literature and studies, as well as urban models, which have incontrovertibly placed the question of the limit at the center of their reflection, for solving problems.
The most livable – and coincidentally the richest – urban realities are those that have accepted this challenge and “setting themselves a limit” is the opportunity for their relaunch and success. […]
Earthquake, human and urban landscape is the first article in Quaderno 16 “Human landscapes, urban landscapes” available from this link in July
On 30 October 2016 at 7:40 a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck Norcia and the surrounding areas. A much stronger shock than the one that only a few days earlier (August 24) had hit the same area, destroying Amatrice. In those hours of August 24, Central Italy saw entire inhabited areas razed to the ground and suffered considerable losses both in terms of human lives and of buildings and places full of art.
The relief efforts started immediately as did the promise of reconstruction and reorganization of the territory. To date, entire areas still see the damage of the earthquake and the reconstruction works have not been completed.
The 2016 earthquake: the damages
The town of Norcia has suffered serious damage to its artistic and cultural heritage, its symbol is the Basilica of San Benedetto. Some hamlets such as San Pellegrino, Campi di Norcia and Castelluccio di Norcia have been almost destroyed.
The slow rebuilding
The aid machine was set in motion from the very first hours. A great deployment of civil and military protection means intervening to bring aid and secure the areas devastated by the main shocks and subsequent aftershocks […]
How the territory has changed
The earthquakes in 2016 produced numerous changes to the morphology of the territory. The earthquake produced a variation of the soil that affects an area of over one thousand square kilometres, the area of Norcia underwent a shift towards the west, with surface faults reaching up to 180 centimetres. In some areas the hilly or mountainous level has decreased, and the watercourses have undergone variations. The opening and closing of natural springs have also caused a change in the economies that revolve around these water sources.
The territory has changed because of the damages and because of reconstruction. The surface occupied by houses has significantly increased up to doubling in various areas. This to the detriment of the green areas around Norcia that were once the pride of the area […]
Dead end track is the intro article to Quaderno 15 “Tourism between revenge and regeneration” available in May from this link
Dead end track. No, don’t worry, even if the title sounds a bit gloomy, in this Quaderno we’re going to talk about tracks that come back to life.
For this publication we are moving to France where we will be “hosted” at La Recyclerie, a place that I had the pleasure of knowing personally and that has something in common with Progetto Re-Cycle. If you look closely at their logo you will see that it looks a lot like ours.
La Recyclerie represents the first track of this story. When I visited the place in March 2022, I was impressed by the fact that this structure had been developed along a track and an abandoned station. La Recyclerie, as Fabrizia Greta Silvestri tells us, was born, initially as a farm, along the old railway walls of Paris in the 18th Arrondissement. Talking about a farm in Paris is a daydream for me.
[…]
Revenge tourism
Fabio Casilli talks about this type of “crowded” tourism in his article on Revenge Tourism.
It is an aspect of tourism that has emerged after Covid. A spasmodic desire to travel resulting on overcrowded cities leading to a tourist offer that risks to become chaotic and of low quality. An offer that has had to deal, both in France and in Italy, with the lack of personnel. The senior staff, because of Covid, resigned and moved to different jobs. In France the real estate market – linked to the 2024 Olympics – has absorbed part of the personnel in the tourism sector. The junior staff that has been employed, still shows lack of skills on field.
Again, the question arises “where is tourism going?” […]
Destination management
When I talk about tourism, I prefer to do it with Destination Management which involves the management of a territory and its enhancement with the support of operators who know closely the place in which they operate
Revenge Tourism or…forget tourism ? The restart after the pandemic by Fabio Casilli is the second article of Quaderno 15 “Tourism between revenge and regeneration” available in May from this link
Tourism in recent years, i.e. from the end of 2019 to today, has undergone a real tsunami that has profoundly changed the way of “doing” tourism, both by those who use it as a tourist/traveller, whose needs have radically changed, and by tourist operators
Indeed, “before” health safety did not even appear among the top twenty selection criteria.
Beyond the devastating effects of the pandemic, the seriousness of Covid as a disease, its spread around the world at a speed and ease unimaginable until then, there were important and no less serious terrible and important effects from a psychological point of view.[…]
Tourism has restarted very slowly, but inexorably.
After a long time locked up and repressed, people have developed a will to move, travel, like never before.
The need to find a “normal” life has pushed the desire to go out to excess.
This phenomenon of almost spasmodic desire to travel has been given a name that explains very well the state of mind we all had when we were able to do it again: revenge tourism
