20 Dec Dissemination events
29 September 2016, Festival of the Third Age, Ljubljana
The Festival of the Third Age took place like every year in Ljublijana , celebrating 1st October – International Day of Older Persons, a good opportunity to present organizations working for and with older persons, their activities and projects.
ZDUS as co-organizer of the festival, presented the project DiscOver55 in a round table called “Expectations of senior tourists”. They invited various stakeholders, hotel and travel agency managers, journalists and – of course – seniors. Alenka Ogrin, as moderator of the event, gave a short description of the project, its goals and activities and presented ZDUS’ role. Later on she gave floor to Saša Ceglar, from Srce Slovenije, Slovenian partner of EDEN project, also about senior tourism, co-financed by COSME programme. At the end we invited Mario Hoffer from Spirit of Regions agency, partner in both presented projects, to describe their motivation and expectations of senior tourism projects.
After presentations a lively discussion about the needs and specifics of senior tourism packages followed.
9 th International Conference for Cultural Tourism in Europe “Intangible Heritage: incomparable asset for sustainable and responsible tourism development”
The Conference in Portugal 23-24 September was attended by representatives from the Committee of Regions, Europa Nostra, public entities from Ave Region, Research Institutes and Tourism operators, European Commission (DG Growth), European Parliament (Intergroup for European Tourism Development, European Parliament Committee on Transport & Tourism-TRAN), Cultural Routes program- Council of Europe.
Main theme was “how to afford the economy crisis through creating a bridge between Cultural tangible and intangible heritage resources and identities, towards a more inclusive Europe Destination”. 2018 will be the European Year for Cultural Heritage: the link with tourism activities will be enforced boosting the networking among people, services and activities in the sector.
DiscOver55 was presented as a regional good practice during the Josè Luis Maestro Castineiras’ intervention (NECSTouR, Working Group Cultural Tourism and Cultural Sustainability). It was a precious occasion to disseminate the main objective of the project and catch the attention of the audience on Lake Saimaa, Izola, Vulkanland, Montepisano. As the field missions revealed, all the four destinations have a great endowment of intangible cultural resources to be offered as a valuable product and incomparable asset for Sustainable and Responsible Tourism Development but the common challenge is to further analyze their impact through detailed statistics.
An award Ceremony has been held for “Destination of Sustainable Cultural Tourism 2016”. Three winners were announced and honored with the Award: 1st PRIZE Latvia, The Turaida Museum Reserve for the preservation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage; 2nd PRIZE Greece, Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art; 3rd PRIZE Spain, Traditional Catalan Cuisine of Tossa de Mar.