The new “idea” of tourism, for a relaunch of the sector in Calabria, passes through the rediscovery of the ancient law of hospitality. Terms that are often talked about, together with the promotion of the best excellences of the territory. Let’s try to delve into them together with those who have decided to invest not only in innovation, but also in tradition.
Calabria, and new frontiers of tourism
Help create a positive impact on people, society and local economies. With this mission she was born Evermind, Benefit Corporations and B Corpwhich has been offering creative, digital and organizational solutions for people and businesses since 2011.
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In recent years, Evermind has given rise to numerous collaborations and innovative projects, among which it stands out the Hospitality Festival, an event that aims to inspire communities, operators and territories to build authentic tourism, made by people for people. We interviewed Francesco BiaccaFounder and Senior Partner of Evermind to delve deeper into issues related to tourism and hospitality.
Nine years of Hospitality Festival. How has hospitality changed in recent years and how has the Festival responded to these changes?
More than Hospitality in the strict sense, both the perception of Hospitality and the meaning given to the word have changed. The Festival of Hospitality, since its inception, has witnessed a metamorphosis of the hospitality sector, a balance between the unstoppable technological advancement and the challenges of contemporary tourism. Remote working and digital nomadism, central themes since the first edition of the Festival, have redefined the concept of travel, influencing our way of living, dwelling, interacting with places and people.
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Modern life, characterized by a continuous oscillation between physical and digital environments, has altered our perception of space and time, bringing to light new individual needs: the search for contact with nature, for humanity, for authentic connections, for experiences significant, slow. In this scenario, the Hospitality Festival has established itself, from day one, as the promoter and inspirer of a new vision, where hospitality becomes its key value, the compass that inspires a new model of tourism – if tourism we can still talk – which transcends the commercial logic of the “tourist machine” to embrace the spirit of hospitality, of reciprocity, promoting a more humane and conscious industry, focused on the well-being of communities and individuals.
In recent years the narrative of Calabria in the tourism sector has changed considerably. What are the points that in your opinion we still need to work on?
I put awareness and organization first. Awareness of who we are, of seeing and experiencing the territories in a new way, where the communities represent the heritage to be preserved and motivated so that new projects can be created, therefore new economies, starting from a new way of seeing the territories themselves .
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Tourism is fundamentally organization and planning. In this sense, we must insist on thinking in terms of a destination, which is hospitable and not just touristy, a destination where the resident community recognizes itself in a collective feeling that experiences the places in a permanent, responsible and sustainable exchange with the environment surrounding and with the temporary community of travellers. By doing so we can make our contribution to a new economy of the Common Good.
“Canarias holds a limit!” with this slogan thousands of residents of the Canary archipelago took to the streets to protest against mass tourism. What are the risks of gentrification?
We have addressed this critical issue of the Tourism Industry from many points of view in the past years and this will be one of the central points of the IX Edition. Gentrification leads to the depopulation of urban and historic centres, leading communities to reject tourism, seeing it as a threat rather than an opportunity for virtuous exchange and encounter. Therefore, even services, often designed for resident communities, are suffering, just think of waste collection or the distribution of water and electricity, two scarce resources that we must already find the best way to use and manage today.
A few months ago the tourist promotion campaign of the Portuguese Tourism Board with the claim “It’s not tourism. It’s futurism” to transform travel into authentic and sustainable experiences. How do you see the hospitality of the future?
In an ever-evolving world, where travelers are increasingly looking for authentic, sustainable and meaningful experiences, hospitality is called upon to reinvent itself to meet these new needs. Making good products is no longer enough, serving them efficiently is no longer enough.
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What matters most is how we make people feel. Within the Tourism Industry for at least two decades there has been talk of deseasonalization and of distributing the flows by not concentrating them on the months of seasonality of the products. We like to think that there is the right season for the right traveller, that the product is co-built together with the communities and that the benefits are equally distributed between entrepreneurs and individual citizens.
