The themes of sustainability and competitiveness will meet those of art and culture, and experience tourism. There will be a special debate on the definition of models and specific indicators to optimize management of tourist destinations linked to art and culture.

As in previous editions, experts and representatives from international institutions, the European Commission, and UNWTO will meet regions and local actors to share ideas on the future and challenges of European tourism, as well as their most interesting and innovative experiences.

Euromeeting 2012 will be held on May 18 and 19 in Fortezza da Basso – Teatrino Lorenese.

6 THEMES TO TELL THE STORY OF ITALY

In order to illustrate the excellence offered by Italian culture, Art & Tourism will create six wide-ranging thematic areas, focusing on themes and products from the country, such as industrial museums, contemporary art galleries, Italian villages, Italian festivals, and Italian UNESCO Heritage sites.

An important space will be dedicated to “Smart Cities” technology applied to the promotion of an area and art as an engine of change and urban transformation.

AT ART & TOURISM, FORECASTS ON THE FUTURE OF TOURISM

Second edition of WTM Vision Conference in Italy in association with TTG Italia

How will travel and tourism perform from the economic point of view in the near future? This will be one of the issues discussed during the WTM Vision Conference, the key international event from WTM London, organized in association with TTG Italia, and planned for May 18 as part of Art & Tourism.

In the course of the seminar, the exclusive analysis conducted by Euromonitor International, the main supplier to the world of business intelligence and strategic market analysis, will be presented.

During the event, a session will be dedicated to the role played by bloggers in the promotion of international tourism.

Source: ttgitalia.com/etn

ITALY (eTN) – It is encouraging to learn that Italy may recover from its early 2011 inconstant tourist economy thanks to a confirmed increase in spending of over 2.8% versus the first quarter of the previous year, according to the findings of the Bank of Italy. This reversal trend is due to the efforts of Mr. Matteo Marzotto and Paolo Rubini, Director General and CEO of ENIT (Italy’s national tourism agency).

Cultural tourism recorded the highest rate of satisfaction among guests originating from overseas, while “sun and beach” is foreseen to top the choice of guests during the Italian summer. The Veneto and Lazio regions are the highest in demand, while Lazio and Tuscany are leaders of overseas guest demand, according to the barometer of tour operators.

The findings have been conducted by ENIT through its foreign offices who have gathered information from the 118 major tour operators dedicated to the sale of tourist packages to the Italian destinations. German tourists, historical patrons of Italian tourist destinations, is under constant recovery (foreseen +10-25%) concentrating the demand on the northern and central areas of the Adriatic coast and the Garda lake district. Italian areas easily accessible by air, like the central area of Italy’s mainland and Apulia and the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, are rampant on the list of preferences.

Also, the demand for Italy from Britain, Spain, Swiss, and Austrian France is on the increase, according to ENIT research. As for the western European markets, Russian tourists are recording an increase in the purchase of packages, up from 60 to 90%. Their preference is for beach destinations, such as Veneto, Sicily, the Neapolitan southern coast, and Sardinia Island coasts.

Poland, the Czec Republic, and Hungary follow suit in minor proportion. The emerging markets (BRIC – Brazil, Russia, India, and China) have also recorded double-digit increases: China is up from 30% to 70%, India is up from 10% to 35%, and Brasil is up from 15% to 45%. USA tour operators have recorded an increase of sales for packages to Italy ranging from 15% to 40%, with the art cities, such as Tuscany, at the top of the list.

The UAE tourists give their preference to tailor-made packages mainly for couples and multi-destination packages to Europe other than Italy. Japan, now on the recovery, is showing interest towards UNESCO destinations in Italy, however, it is still a guess as to what the summer flow will hold as compared to the previous year.

Thanks to its geographical position and environment, Italy remains a privileged tourist destination, stated Mr. Matteo Marzotto, President of the ENIT agency. He added: “While undergoing a period of readjustment following its severe economic revolution, Italy confirm its importance, particularly towards the foreign markets, proposing its brand and its high potentialities.”

Italy is back in business, according to ENIT. “Italy need to maintain its position (in each single market) and the winning strategies applied. Plus a plan of refreshment, which involve[s] ideas and funds, of which ENIT is penalized, and forcing to streamline our ongoing [efforts], which we [are] try[ing] to optimize in order to keep up with our plan.”

The views of Mr. Paolo Rubini, CEO of ENIT, are positive regarding the increase in the demand for Italy from the foreign markets, and he considers it a reward from the efforts of the ENIT team. “We are now operating on a ‘Club of Product,’ which places our attention on strategies of segmentation of the international demand and propos[es] a coherent and personalized package of the national product. Our future strategy will be to penetrate the most important areas of Brasil, India, Russia, China (BRIC) applying effective slogans such as: ‘Italy Comes to You’ and ‘Art and made In Italy,’ on which we rely upon to stimulate the tourists ‘attention towards our country.”

Image via destination360.com

The National Park of the Casentino Forests is formed by centuries-old firs, beeches and chestnut trees. The holiday in Casentino gives you the opportunity to do many and different activities, including incredible mountain bike excursions.

Tuscany also gives a wide choice for the tourists to visit beautiful cities such as Florence, Pisa, Siena, but also many small medieval villages, very distinctive and rich of history such as San Gimignano, located near Siena.

San Gimignano is the world-famous medieval town, with its towers and its beauty right in the heart of the Tuscan countryside. You have the chance to visit a Cathedral, Museum of Sacred Art and beautiful Towers. In San Gimignano you have also the possibility of food-and wine-tasting and shopping among the stands of local traditional craftsmanship.

Tuscany is also known as the land of the ancient Etruscan civilization. In the city of Cortona, near Arezzo you can find many historical relics related to the civilization of the Etruscans who lived and left their traces in Tuscany.

The Melone II del Sodo is certainly the most charming and fascinating work that we can admire in the countryside around Cortona. It is also possible to visit the Etruscan Academy Museum and MAEC: here you can admire meaningful and very important works of art, just remember the famous Etruscan bronze chandelier of the fourth century BC and various handicrafts that arrive from the Etruscan tombs discovered in the countryside of Cortona.

In Arezzo instead you can admire its most important monuments, such as the Tuscan gothic-style Cathedral, in which you can enjoy the important art works and paintings and the windows decorated with figures of Guglielmo de Marcillat. It’s possible to discover the local handicrafts, to admire the frescoes on the “Leggenda della vera Croce” (Legend of the True Cross) by Piero della Francesca and the Houses of Giorgio Vasari and Francesco Petrarca.

The most important historical event of the city is the “Giostra del Saracino”, which has ancient origins. It begins with the exciting carousel with its 400 characters in medieval clothing. The city is divided into four areas, called “quartieri”, driven by a fierce competition. At the district winner goes the coveted “golden spear”, the trophy up for grabs each year.

For all these sites rich with history and magic, Tuscany is perfect also for honeymoon: there is in fact a legendary place for weddings. For couples looking for the most charming places of Tuscany to get married, it is possible to organize weddings in the most fascinating structures as the ancient village of Lucignano.

The curious legend of the Tree of Love characterizes this place, so “getting married” in Lucignano means to do it in the most important places of the ancient village as the Council Chamber of the ancient Municipal Palace. Inside the small Municipal Museum, the new couple will promise everlasting love in front of the magnificent Tree of Love, a masterpiece of Gothic jeweller’s art.

Here the typical Tuscan farmhouses will host the couples and their guests in a refined, genuine and very warm atmosphere. The newlyweds can taste the typical products ranging from the gorgeous Chianina steaks with olive oil to the Chianti wine and Brunello wine.

Finally we cannot forget the beautiful places of the Tyrrhenian Sea where you can spend an enjoyable holiday. The Tuscan Archipelago is also well known, made up of small islands and features. Here visitors have the opportunity of mini-cruises to visit Elba Isle and Isle of Giglio.

By Saracino Viaggi Incoming Tour Operator

Saracino Viaggi Incoming Tour Operator organizes many tours for singles, couples or groups around Tuscany. It is important to remember that they are all tailor-made packages.

http://www.saracinoviaggi.it

http://www.ctsarezzo.it

http://www.italiatourismonline.com

www.tourism-review.com

ITALY (eTN) – For all the pilgrims who come to Rome for the beatification of Pope John Paul II, they will find that the Vatican Museums will be open at night on April 26, 27, 28, 29, and May 2, 2011 as part of the celebration. The beatification takes place on Sunday, May 1, 2011.

Pope John Paul II, the Governor of the State of the Vatican City, has ordered that on these days, the opening hours for the Vatican Museums will be extended with extraordinary late opening hours from 1900 to 2400 hours, with last admission at 2200 hours. For all pilgrims who have in their possession of a letter from their parish, diocese, or other institution, entrance to the Vatican Museums will be provided at a reduced price of 8 euros.

These initiatives were created to ensure that those who flock to the Holy City will be greeted with a broader service and a better reception than usual, giving testimony to the spirit of collaboration of all the Vatican Museums staff who has been called in to serve the Holy See with pride and dedication.

“The museums of the Pope are the museums of all,” said the Director of the Vatican Museums, Antonio Paolucci, “They represent the history, mission, and fate of the Universal Church. For this, we wanted to open an extraordinary night at a reduced price to anyone who will be in Rome in the days before and after the beatification of John Paul II. In the face of Raphael and Michelangelo, the Apollo Belvedere, and the Laocoon, the world’s Christians will feel proud to belong to a church that has given the world the supreme consolation of beauty.”

Given the great success of past years, beginning Friday, May 6 the Vatican Museums will be open “under the stars” every Friday night for the third consecutive year. These nightly hours will continue through the spring and summer (except for the month of August) until October 28 with evening hours from 1900 to 2300 (last admission at 2130 hours).

More than 30,300 visitors walked through the Pontifical museums and galleries last year under the moonlight – an audience of mostly Roman citizens, young couples, families with children, and young people who enthusiastically embraced an alternative proposal to the usual evening entertainment.

These enchanting evening museum visits are not only for the thousands of tourists who will flock to visit, they are also for the Roman people who are too busy during normal opening hours because of work and family to finally take ownership of their museums, and enjoy their beauty at a special and unusual time.

“The Vatican Museums have the most beautiful works of art to offer to its people. With them also open at night, you must see them with your family and friends,” said Antonio Paolucci. Night visits to the Vatican Museums must be booked online at the official website: www.museivaticani.va

Vatican and Tiber River in Rome / Image via nomadbackpackers.com

The event offers a view of the crucial passage that laid the basis for the European avant-garde art movements of the early 20th century.

Rovereto (Tn) – March 19th – July 24th, 2011

www.mart.trento.it

This is the return leg of an exhibition that was first on show at the British Museum in London during the Summer of 2010; there it was entitled ‘Masterpices from the Uffizi Gallery – Italian Renaissance Drawings’, here it headlines as ‘Figure, Memorie, Spazio Disegni da Fra’Angelico a Leonardo.’

\With perfect balance, the exhibition features 50 pieces from the British Museum and 50 from the Uffizi Gallery, and highlights the increasing importance of drawing in the fifteenth century, featuring works by Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Angelico, Jacopo and Gentile Bellini, Botticelli, Carpaccio, Filippo Lippi, Mantegna, Michelangelo, Verrocchio and Titian amongst others.

www.uffizi.firenze.it

Spilamberto treasure

Spilamberto – Modena, Emilia Romagna Region

11 dicembre 2010 – 25 aprile 2011

www.regione.emilia-romagna.it

The Municipality of Spilamberto and the Department of Archaeological Heritage of Emilia-Romagna, backed by the scientific support of the Lombardy Department of Archaeological Heritage, have created an exhibition that leaves room to explore many other aspects of the find. Based on the recomposition of the most important burials, the wide assortment of artifacts and the extensive system of interesting artifact descriptions embellished by graphic rendering, thought-provoking theories and themes are proposed for subsequent in-depth studies to be carried out within the framework of the reconstruction of the early medieval history of the area of Modena and Emilia-Romagna

Glass adventure

Venezia – Museo Correr

December 11 2010 – April 25 2011

www.museiciviciveneziani.it

Once again the Correr Museum is host to a prestigious exhibition on glass, a continuation, from a diverse angle of the same-named exhibition “The Adventure of Glass”, just ended at in Trento. While some of the items on display in this great Venetian edition are different, other more important ones have been added in celebration of over a thousand years’ history of glass in Venice and the Lagoon.

The background to this event is the imminent celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Museum, which was founded in 1861 thanks to Abbot Zanetti, and also in view of the plans foreseen for the expansion in the spaces of the nearby Conterie, in the hope of encouraging more donations of twentieth-centur y works.

Moataz Nasr

San Gimignano (SI)

February 12th – May 1st, 2011

www.galleriacontinua.com

Regarded as one of the leading exponents of contemporary pan-Arab art, the Egyptian artist Moataz Nasr has conceived this exhibition as a philosophical and spiritual journey, inviting us to meditate on the meaning of things and on co-existence. A choral song, a paean to compassion, as the key to knowledge, as the light which illuminates the way, and to love, as the abolition of frontiers and prejudices – elements which the artist renders in formal terms by re-elaborating common icons of the Islamic world to the point of transforming them into new global aesthetic signifiers, symbolic abstractions open to a multiplicity of readings. The exhibition is spread over the stalls area, the circles and the stage of the former cinema and theatre, metaphorically tracing a path directed towards spiritual elevation.

In this region the creativity industry and the rich music wealth – supported through Puglia Sounds, the Puglia Region’s program for the music system development – have been considered as fundamental for the growth of the whole community. So, Puglia is the perfect place for an event as Italia Wave Love Festival that since its first edition has been representing the Italian reference point for youthful cultures. A new deal for the prestigiou s festival with the City and Province of Lecce and Region Puglia: a new evocative location for Italia Wave, new territorial synergies, but the same will of proposing high level gigs and of making curious the audience.

The schedule of the 25th Italia Wave Love Festival will take place during four days full of events set in Lecce with the traditional formula of “urban festival”: from the city stadium for the Main stage to the beach, from the historic center to the Lepore Airport where the Elettrowave’s DJs will perform.

The whole town will be involved by Italia Wave, a real opportunity for the Salento area and for all the region that is more and more the destination which cannot be renounced for the music youthful tourism of the summer 2011.

Among the special projects, the presence of Medwave is confirmed. An event organized in association with Siae and Sacem with music bands coming from the countries facing the Mediterranean sea. A portion of the program dedicated to the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the festival, a quarter of century of a Republic of rock, is confirmed too. Italia Wave will propose to its audience the best bands who performed on its stages in the past, with reference to both the rock music and electronic music. Elettrowave will present the story of the electronic music in Italy from the Baia degli Angeli to the latest digital perspectives.

Till now 2,308 up-coming bands submitted to take part to Italia Wave, through the contest for new bands organized every year by the no profit foundation “Arezzo Wave Italia” through its “Italia Wave Network”, a network situated in each Italian Region with 32 leaders and more than 200 “antennae” (CDs stores, radios, youth offices, etc…): an historic record of submissions confirming the will of doing music in Italy and the “thirst” of spaces where people can perform and start a music career as a musician.

In 2011 Italia Wave Festival will be presented abroad too, during International events connected to Italia Wave, member and co-founder of the European festival Association, Yourope.

For the 150 years since the Unification of Italy, Venice reveals itself with its feminine sensuality calling back to the famous nineteenth century heroines of the post romantic era whom the Carnival is dedicated to, by adding folk and exhilarating elements to the fight between the Austrian soldiers and the members of the Committees for the Unification of Italy. In this way, Venezia meets again the Venetians in their theatres and museums, dialoguing with them through concerts, theatre pieces, historical re-enactments, grand balls and film shows.

www.carnevale.venezia.it

Putignano – (Ba) – December 26th, 2010 – March 8th, 2011

The Putignano Carnival in the Region of Puglia, with its famous parade of papier-mache floats, is both the longest and one of the oldest carnivals in the world. Some researchers have found records dating the event back to 26 December, 1394. Its fame as the world’s longest carnival derives from the fact that like all such events it ends on Shrove Tuesday, but this one starts on the 26 December, with the multi-centennial tradition of the Propaggine. The Propaggine involves the transfer of St Stefan Protomartyre’s Holy Relics from Monopoli to Putignano. During the original transfer of the relics, local farmers joined in with dancing, singing and reciting rhymes during the procession, hence the beginning of the carnival!

www.carnevalediputignano.it

Viareggio – (Lu) – February 20th – March 13th, 2011

In 2011, the usual five carnival masked parades are planned for February 20th, 27th and March 6th, 8th, 13th, on the extraordinary Liberty style staging along the seaside avenues of Viareggio. Every evening, there are carnival celebrations in all of the city’s different quarters. Viareggio Carnival’s peculiarity consists in giant, allegorical papier-maché floats – the biggest ones weighing about forty tons each – and expresses nowadays the old knowledge going back to the ancient ‘trionfi’ (war-victory feastings) of the Renaissance, adhering even more to the building techniques of the big sailing ships, a pride of Viareggio traditions.

www.viareggio.ilcarnevale.com

Ivrea – (To) – January 6th – March 9th, 2011

The spirit of Carnival lives through the re-enactment of the city’s liberation from tyranny dating back to Medieval times: a baron who starved the city was driven away thanks to a miller’s daughter who rebelled against the “jus primae noctis” and roused the people to revolt. In this commemoration every year the new version of the Carnival is celebrated as Festival involving the whole town, during which the community of Ivrea can show its self-determination. To fill the city with color and scents, there is then the famous, spectacular Battle of the Oranges, in which the fighters identify strongly with the people’s rebellion against tyranny.

www.storicocarnevaleivrea.it

Scientists have been trying for some time to figure out why the inhabitants of the Mediterranean island of Sardinia live on average longer than people in the rest of Europe. An unprecedentedly high percentage of the Sardinians are older then eighty years. According to the study recently published in Nature journal, genes, climate, food but also Sardinian red wine are the reasons behind the long life.

The wines of Sardinia contain molecules of tannin that prevent cardiovascular diseases, for example arterial sclerosis. As Novinky.cz informed, wine shops are everywhere in Sardinia. The biggest Sardinian city Cagliari is full of them and sitting in one of them in the evening enables tourists to experience the unique atmosphere of the place.

The island is called the Caribbean of the Mediterranean and it is an ideal tourism destination. Visitors can spend their time on sandy as well as stony beaches. Wild countryside, fantastic dive sites and delicious meals such as langouste also attract tourists to Sardinia. Some people believe that the island is the mythical Atlantis. Such ideas have been supported by the discovery of the remains of megalithic structures after a period of heavy rains. The structures are called nuraghe and there are thousands of them scattered throughout the whole island.

tourism-review.com

The town is located in central Italy, about 120 kilometers north off Rome, near the city of Orvieto. As Cestovanie.sk reports, Civita di Bagnoregio has a long history. It was established by Etruscans on a rock. They, however, did not know that under the rock there was tuff, which erodes quite easily. The erosion is in fact the reason why most people left the town. The town used to be the seat of bishops. However, at the end of 16th century earthquakes, floods and erosion caused a lot of damage. Afterwards the town officials as well as the bishop left the town. Most of the remaining inhabitants left at the beginning of the 19 century and only few remained there.

The only access road to the town was a stone bridge that collapsed in 1901; the new bridge was destroyed by Germans during the Second World War. The current bridge was built in the 60s. At the same time, the government also started projects that slowed down the erosion. The town is a marvel for tourists who dislike crowded places like Rome. Its architecture is untouched by new development and it still looks as it did some 500 years ago. For visitors, there is one small hotel Civita B & B. The atmosphere in the town is unique and tourists may enjoy it over a glass of wine in the local restaurant Antico Fomo.