STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE TOURISM: THE VENICE PARADOX

1
STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE TOURISM THE VENICE
PARADOX

• Mirella Wizina, Tourism Department Member City
  of Venice
  
• Orazio Alberti, Teacher of Technical High School
  for Tourism F.Algarotti
  
• Roberta Manzi, President of Limosa Cooperative

2

• STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE
  TOURISM Venice, the World Capital of Tourism

• Mirella Wizina
• Venice Tourism Department Member

Direzione Beni e Attività Culturali - Area
Turismo Cà Giustinian, San Marco 1364 Tel. 339-04
12747762
www.comune.venezia.it/turismo
3
Tourism in Venice

• The Socio-economic Context
• Stakeholders in the Tourism System
• Actions and Outlook for Sustainable Tourism

4
The Socio-economic Context

• The territory divided in three macro areas
  (Mainland Historic Centre Estuary)
  
• Resident Population 270.992 in 2005
• 176.000 in the Mainland (Mestre)
• 63.000 in the Historic Centre
• 31.000 in the Estuary
• Production Activities

5
Stakeholders in theTourism System

• Tourists 15 millions visitors each year in the
  historic centre (about 100/120.000 arrivals every
  day)
  
• Private Sector Tourism Businesses
• The Host Community
• Public Institutions

6
Actions and Outlook for Sustainable Tourism the
City of Venice strategic plan

• Increase the Potential of Cultural Tourism

• Boost the Quality of the Demand by Promoting New
  Tourist Offers

• Manage the Tourism System"

www.comune.venezia.it/pianostrategico
7
The role of a school for tourist operators for a
more sustainable tourism
Orazio Alberti Teacher of Economic and Tourist Ge
ography Technical High School for Tourism Fra
ncesco Algarotti Cannaregio 349 Venice www.a
lgarotti.it
8
The school a short presentation (1)

• F.Algarotti is a High technical secondary
  school founded in Venice in 1962.
  
• Its aim is to train tourist operators with
  up-to-date professional competences and further
  the education of students who can continue their
  studies at the University.
• After 5 years of training, the students find
  their job in public and private tourist agencies
  tour operators events organization agencies
  hotels etc..

9
The school a short presentation (2)

• The students enrolled for the school year 2005
  2006 are 748
  
• Students are not only from Venice, but also from
  the whole district

10
Why a course of environmental tourism the idea
of Venice

• Generally, tourists know Venice just for its
  beautiful monuments, for the tourist tours famous
  all over the world, or the great events organized
  in the city, such as the Film Festival, the
  historic Regatta, the Carnival, etc
• The tourist promotion of Venice in Italy and all
  over the world points to these attractive
  elements
  
•  

11
Why a course of environmental tourism the
Lagoon and the City

• Usually, people and tourists do not know the
  environmental context in which Venice lays the
  Lagoon
  
• The Lagoon is an unique environment, between
  ground and water. If you do not know and
  understand its environment, you cannot understand
  neither the ancient nor the recent history of
  Venice. Besides, you cannot understand its
  enchantment nor its current problems

12
The goals of the course

• Completing and furthering the general didactics
  taugh in the school with new knowledge, such as
  
• The environmental context in which Venice lays
  environmental education
  
• Tourist trend and impact on Venice
• The politics of planning and regulation of
  tourist flows the sustainable tourism
  
• The exploitation of tourism should aim more at
  the naturalistic and cultural resources the
  lagoon is very rich of these resources, but they
  are often considered marginal, and often are
  outside of the historical centre

13
Matters and organization of the course

• The course is structured into two parts
• First part The Venice Lagoon between nature and
  history
  
• Second part toruism in Venice and its
  economic-environmental impact
  

14
Second part tourism in Venice and its economic
and environmental impact
15
Planning touristic tours

• The students who partecipated in this second
  part of the course realized, in little groups
  followed by a tutor, 10 projects of tourist tours
  with a strong environmental and
  historical-cultural value. They were planned for
  young tourists and they are bound to
  environmental and cultural concepts learnt during
  the training

16
Planning touristic tours (2)

• This experience represented a very important
  moment to know better the lagoon environment and
  all the tourist resources which this unique site
  can offer.
• They could read some classical tourist tours in
  a different way and they could project new ones,
  more linked to the secular relationship between
  the population and the Lagoon environment

17
Positives outcomes

• 120 students partecipated in the course, outside
  the school schedule and of their own will
  
• From 2001 until now the course has become part of
  the School Plan of the Triaining Offer
  
• A strong network of people working
  uninterruptedly together on the project was
  developped teachers of the school, University,
  naturalistic operators, environmental
  associations.
• Every year the course is requested and followed
  with big interest by many students

18
The difficulties

• Its hard to give a continuity to the project
  because of
  
• a) difficulties in harmonizing it with general
  didatics planning and organization
  
• b) lack of fundings
• These difficulties in school year 2002-2003
  brought to
  
• - a reduction of the course duration (from a
  two-year-course to a one-year-course)
  
• - the forced renounce to the phase of touristic
  tours planning (the most interesting for
  students), because of incompatibility with the
  regular school schedule.

19
The future

• Resuming the planning of touristic tours, in
  cooperation with the environmental associations
  which manage sites of naturalistic interest and
  with the administration of the districts of the
  City of Venice interested in exploiting the
  marginal sites of the territory
• Production of brochure and other literature to
  distribute to other schools
  
• Offering tourist guides for schools visiting
  Venice, giving value to technics and languages
  learned by the students of the school
  

20
The experience of a cooperative enterprise

• Roberta Manzi
• President
• LIMOSA soc. coop. Operatori Naturalisti
• via Toffoli 5 30175 Venezia Marghera
• Tel [phone]
• Fax [phone]
• Mail limosa_at_limosa.it www.limosa.it

21
GOAL... PRESENTATION OBJECTIVES

• An insight into Limosa, describing its context as
  a typical example of Venetian environmental
  cooperative.
  
• An analysis of three case studies about eco-
  tourism around and in the Venice Lagoon.
  
• Thoughts and considerations about future
  possibilities and perspectives.
  

22
LIMOSA

• The business idea
• the realisation of a Park that never was.
• The mission
• To achieve and satisfy the needs of the
  organisation through focused completion of
  precise professional milestones and objectives,
  which relate to environmental, educational and
  territorial management from the perspective of
  sustainability.
•  

23
LIMOSAIncome for different area (2004)
24
LIMOSA

• STRENGTHS
• High quality.
• Customer focused.
• Strong, cohesive team.

• WEAKENESS
• Growth crisis.
• No long term projects planned.

25
Project LIFE ViviLaguna year 1996/97
Goal Diversification into eco-tourism
conceptualisation and selling of a tour of the
Lagoon. Target Adults, individuals Characterist
ics European community founding, institutional
partners, private management (associations)
More on www.forumlagunadivenezia.org
26

• Strengths
• Wide partnership.
• Quality of content.
• First project concerning eco-tourism in the
  geographical area.

27

• Weaknesses
• Poorly marketed oriented.
• Difficult role-definition (associations,
  professionals..)
  
• Short-term project (start-up only)

28
Project Naturalmente since 1989
Goal Natural enviromental holidays around the
Lagoon Target School groups Caratheristics Spo
nsored and managed entirely by private
organisations (coop. Limosa Tour Operators)
More on www.soggiorninaturalmente.it
www.limosa-it
29

• Strengths
• 15 years experience
• Close collaboration with travel agency
• Range of high quality, relevant destinations
• Personalization of the programmes
• Strong client relationships
• Consideration to contents and professionality of
  the guides
  
• All inclusive travel packages arranged

30

• Weaknesses
• Price restrictions based on market competition
• Weak marketing activities
• Increased complexity of bookings due to options
  about locations and characteristics of
  residentiality
  
• Target market with low expenditure possibilities

31
Project Certosa islandGoals Multifunctional
center for environmental and sport activities
(sailing and rowing)Target School groups, and
sports groupsCharacteristics submitted proposal
for local contract to be assigned to successful
private organisation with the cooperation of
Venice Council.
32
Project in progress Necessity to learn from
previuos experiences
33

• Institutional problems
• Weak cooperation between public institutions
  either on a vertical level and on a horizontal
  level (tourism, culture, environment,
  education)
• Vagueness of European Communty projects (A21,
  Leader, Life, Interreg, EMAS certification)
  
• Difficult definition of roles, low recognition of
  specific professional specialisations
  

34

• Companys internal problems
• Limited relationships established with the
  existing tourism network
  
• Restricted network connection capacity
• Strong dependancy on public institutions
• Small scale (with a few exceptions see
  www.atlantide.net)
  

35
3 GOLDEN RULES

• Environmental tourism cannot convert market
  shares from traditional tourism, but creates
  awareness and quality in the territory management
  process
• A stable network must be established, which
  respect the importance of each associated group
  or individual
  
• Public funding - in this sector - must improve
  the organisation procedures