The Round table meeting "Hamlets on the move: pathways to valorisation" with local cultural and environmental operators and organizations, will be held on 16 April 2019, from 10:30 am to 13:00 pm, at the Cineporto - Fiera del Levante, Lungomare Starita, Bari. The Round table is an event within the project HAMLET, funded under the first Call for standard projects of the Interreg IPA CBC Italy-Albania-Montenegro Programme.
The Apulian villages of Vico del Gargano, Bovino, Cisternino, Pulsano and Galatone are involved in the HAMLET project which aims to increase the attractiveness of natural and cultural assets, encouraging the development of sustainable tourism in order to improve intelligent economic development of the area. In particular, the project intends to enhance and transform villages and small cities into places of cultural aggregation, in which to test innovative services, with particular attention to the forms of so-called "accessible tourism", in connection with the infrastructure networks aimed at providing a better experience also for people with disabilities.
Being a cooperation project between Italy, Albania and Montenegro, in addition to the Apulian villages, the project foresees involvement of 3 Albanian and 5 Montenegrin villages which, as historically demonstrated, share roots and traditions which, in some cases, also survive through the common language.
The main objective of the meeting will be a collection of useful data on ancient traditions, works and professions, environmental and cultural characteristics and stories linked to the territory that each of the 5 interested villages will put on the table as a material for sharing, in order to create and adopt proposals aimed at valorisation of each village through new tourist routes.
During the meeting representatives will demonstrate, through sharing of good practices, how the villages and small towns represent a determining reality in the creation of tourist attractiveness and how they can contribute with appropriate tools to the economic and employment development of the region.
The round table will be an important occasion for everyone to bring out numerous ideas aimed at promoting tourism at cross border level. Enhancing the attractiveness of small towns though local craftsmanship, it will be developed the sense of the common good and social aggregation which will result in reducing the territorial marginalization. Further, round table will be an occasion for reflection on the future valorisation of the Apulian villages, in order to give life to a unique and innovative tourist cultural path, which will allow getting to know Puglia through thousand environmental and cultural facets.