TRAPANI. The candidacy process of the entire territory of the province of Trapani for the UNESCO network of Creative Cities for Gastronomy has officially begun. An extraordinary tool to enhance the area of western Sicily, its products, its uniqueness and the professionalism present. In recent weeks the Western Sicily Tourist District has promoted presentation meetings to share the application project with institutional representatives, sector associations and tourism operators and has gathered great interest and participation in a shared application which would increase the prospects of the entire sector in different areas, not only food and wine but also social, cultural and youth employment. Municipalities, University Centre, Asp, Chamber of Commerce, Free Municipal Consortium of Trapani and many private entities have expressed their willingness to join the initiative which represents a great opportunity for international visibility and relaunch for the province. In fact, if the candidacy were accepted, Trapani would be the first city in southern Italy to enter the “UNESCO network of Creative Cities”.
The path includes several stages that will end in May 2025 when the dossier will be presented to the Italian National Commission UNESCO. At the moment, in the 7 clusters (Crafts and Folk Arts, Media Arts, Cinema, Design, Literature, Music and Gastronomy) the Italian cities present in the network of UNESCO Creative Cities are 14 (Bologna, Fabriano, Turin, Parma, Rome, Alba, Carrara, Milan, Pesaro, Bergamo, Biella, Como, Modena and Bolzano), and they work together with the aim of placing creativity and cultural industries at the center of their development plans at a local level and actively cooperating at an international level. At a global level, there are a total of 350 creative cities.
To date, the creative Italian cities for Gastronomy are Parma, Alba and Bergamo.
“The goal is ambitious, we are aware of it. We want to unite all the great food and wine cultural heritage of our land and enhance it with a vision project based on the values that UNESCO pursues and that we can find in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. – comments Rosalia D’Alì, president of the Western Sicily District – The project has received broad consensus in the various meetings that we have promoted in recent weeks and the challenge has already begun. It is essential that we are all united to achieve the goal”.
“This is an important stage in the growth path for the province – recognized the many municipal administrators who have embraced the project – which, with the UNESCO recognition of Creative City for Gastronomy, will be able to make an important leap forward in terms of visibility and credibility at a national and international level”.
The candidacy project will be coordinated by Cristiano Casadi PA Studio who, as councilor of the Municipality of Parma, followed the candidacy of the Emilian city as a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy and who in 2015 obtained the recognition and collaborated in the creation of the District of the Creative Cities of Italian Gastronomy.
