The APPRODI – from ancient maritime routes to eco-touristic destinations Project is an European project that focuses on the promotion and valorization of five ancient harbor sites within the Adriatic-Ionian area:
• Ortona – Italy
• Venice – Italy
• Dubrovnik – Croatia
• Durres – Albania
• Corfù – Greece
In the past, all the involved territories hosted significant ancient harbors. Nowadays, similar destinations are often considered scarcely attractive for tourists and quite useless to cities’ development. Additionally,there’s always an insufficient involvement of community actors in cultural heritage valorization.
For these reasons, APPRODI's main objective is to promote and valorize cultural heritages in the ADRION area by enhancing management and promotion of ancient harbors sites as tourist destinations and by improving the involvement of local communities. The five pilot cases of Ortona, Venice, Dubrovnik, Durres and Corfù will be valorized as new potential destinations by applying innovative techniques, such as geo-archeological investigations. All the findings will be then exposed in Museums exhibitions or zero impact and zero infrastructures solutions for an innovative coastal and lagoon archaeological park.
APPRODI aims then at a qualitative change in the nature of tourism demand with a transnational approach and at increasing visibility of the valorised new destinations
ADRION promotes cooperation and solidarity between eight Partner States within the Adriatic and Ionian region, including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. ADRION acts as a policy driver and governance innovator, giving support to European integration among its Partner States as well as enhancing economic, social and territorial cohesion in the Adriatic and Ionian region. ADRION invests in regional innovation systems, cultural and natural heritage, environmental resilience, sustainable transport and mobility as well as capacity building.
To be more specific, Sustainable Tourism is about finding the perfect balance between environmental, economic and socio-cultural dimensions of tourism development, in order to achieve a greater long-term sustainability. The WTO states how Sustainable Tourism should follow 3 core principles applicable to all forms of tourism in all types of destinations, including mass tourism and the various niche tourism segments, that is:
1) Make optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity.
2) Respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance.
3) Ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation.
It’s important to stress how great emphasis is given to the ethical dimension of tourism, such as the involvement and participation of all relevant stakeholders, the continuous nature of the process, and the importance of raising awareness among tourists.
For this reason, The United Nations underlined the importance of ethics in sustainable tourism development with its resolution A/RES/56/212, officially recognizing The Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (GCET). This code comprises a set of comprehensive principles designed to guide key players in tourism development. Among these stakeholders, there are:
- central and local governments
- local communities
- the tourism industry and its professionals
- visitors/ consumers, both international and domestic.
