A cosmopolitan city that changed his life, his perspectives, his way of seeing the job market and obviously taught him a new language. His story
From Sicily to Dubai on the edge of his greatest passions, football and tourism, which he has been able to transform into work. The story of Fabrizio Puglisi It acts as a stimulus to many young people in United Arab Emirateswhere he has lived since 2012, and in his hometown, Torrenova in the province of Messina.
Fabrizio, born in 1986, grew up in this town of about eight thousand souls to which he has always been very attached, because it is there that he acquired the baggage of values that he always carries within him, such as respect, friendship and freedom.
«Torrenova is a united town made up of beautiful people – this is Fabrizio’s clear and loving memory – which is no coincidence that in recent years it has been achieving extraordinary results and is now a point of reference in the Nebrodi area».
His family and many friends are still in town and their absence has never ceased, even if in recent years he manages to return more often to meet them each time with the same joy. life path Fabrizio’s work developed through two apparently distant fields which instead found a meeting point in him.
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On the one hand, his passion for travel, cultivated since he attended high school in Sant’Agata di Militello, a period in which every time the opportunity arose he would take his suitcase or backpack to leave, sometimes even with the “makeshift means” of a boy who does not yet have a job.
From this desire to discover new worlds was born the choice to attend a degree course in Economics and Management of Tourist Services in Palermo, where he spent some of the best years I remember.
Friends, colleagues, studying and some parties are among the moments that remain etched in his memory and to which he is particularly attached, together with the city that served as the location.
After graduation came the splendid work-study experience in London, a crucial moment that in some way marks the opening of that range of perspectives that an enterprising boy like Fabrizio certainly deserves in life.
A cosmopolitan city that changed his life, his perspectives, his way of seeing the job market and obviously taught him the language.
Immediately after London came the experience with ENIT, the Italian national tourism agency in the Vienna office and from there, in February 2012, he arrived in the United Arab Emirates for an internship at a five-star hotel in Abu Dhabi, as part of the Master in economics and marketing of tourism and territorial communication that he was following.
Certainly a privileged approach that showed him the aspect from the first days more sumptuous and glittering of those places, as well as an important and formative experience for Fabrizio.
During his internship in Vienna he had written a thesis on ENIT and, once he arrived in Abu Dhabi, he decided to send it to the then president of the institution who asked him to further his research on the Middle East.
His passion later turned into a job with the request to strengthen “Antenna Enit” in the Emirates, managing the promotion of Italian tourism in the Middle East and contributing to increasing tourist flows towards Italy in general and EXPO 2015 in particular.
Today his work continues with consultancy, teaching and seminars, and in 2018, together with other Italian partners in Dubai, he founded a tour operator that selects the best products and experiences in the UAE, Middle East and Indian Ocean. Furthermore, after many years he also started collaborating with Enit again.
His first choice to stay in the UAE was dictated by the desire to advance his career, in those parts if you are willing to make some sacrifices and persevere you can grow much more quickly than what is possible in Europe.
Over time, he found that the quality of life in the United Arab Emirates was higher than he could have expected and decided to continue for a while longer.
The key to being there for twelve years now, however, in addition to the job satisfaction that Fabrizio can undoubtedly boast, are certainly the people and friends who surround him and have allowed him to find a second home in a place so far away and certainly different from his usual: «I consider myself very lucky and I realize that it is not a given in such a dynamic city and far from home».
Alongside his passion for travel, and consequently his work in the tourism sector, Fabrizio has a passion for football. His love dates back to when he played for the local team, Torrenovese, starting as a child in the youth team to reach the first team and winning the second division championship in the last match he played just before graduating and leaving.
His faith in football, especially for the “old lady” – Juventus for the less experienced – was inherited and shared with his father, and now that he is no longer with us it is perhaps an even more intense memory of the past.
As soon as he arrived in Dubai, he participated in the foundation of the first official fan club in the Middle East, becoming its communications manager.
Ten years later and after many satisfactions on and off the pitch, Fabrizio Today he is part of the board and as a good fan he continues to watch the matches with his friends from the fan club, despite the three hour time difference with Italy…after this project the football school project came to life, a challenge carried forward with a friend from the club, that of the “Juventus Academy”, born in 2015.
The first years were made of many sacrifices, starting from a simple garage with just thirty balls, a rented field, three coaches and seven members. After many years and a long experience both educational and human through great teamwork, they have now grown to the point of having seven fields, plus the indoor summer ones, between Dubai and Sharjah, with more than a thousand members from over fifty nationalities in each sports season.
Thirty professionals including qualified coaches, managers and administrators with whom they have won numerous awards as the best sports organization in the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East, also managing to be the first team to triumph at the Juventus Academy World Cup, a tournament organized in Turin every year.
Today his life proceeds peacefully both from a professional and personal point of view, with the constant growth of his projects in a dynamic city, full of opportunities and which at the moment seems to be the center of the world.
Partly for passion and partly for work, he continues to travel and takes advantage of it to visit different countries, telling about them through social media. Working in the two areas that he is most passionate about certainly makes everything easier and more satisfying.
Despite having left home for more than ten years now, he maintains a strong bond with Italy, also manifested through a whole series of initiatives, personal and entrepreneurial projects, which highlight the hard-working Italian community in the United Arab Emirates of which he is a part.
For the moment, a great variety of activities keep him permanently in Dubai, but Fabrizio certainly does not stop dreaming that in a few years he can return to Sicily.
