On Thursday 18th of April 2024 (start time: 9:30 a.m., Building E, room E10, Campus Ecotekne), the Department of Economic Sciences of the University of Salento will host the European workshop "Workation and new perspectives for tourism". This is the first of the activities foreseen by FRea project “From Fictitious to Real hotel ideas for innovative forms of tourism” – funded Interreg IPA South Adriatic Programme 2021/2027, born from the cooperation of the Department of Economic Sciences of the University of Salento with the regional agency SviluppoItalia Molise S.p.A. and with the associations operating in the sustainable tourism sector People In Focus (Albania) and "New Horizon" (Montenegro).
The workshop will be focused on the topic of "workation". This neologism describes a new form of tourism that is increasingly widespread today, especially after the pandemic and the consequent development of smart-working and related technologies. This new form of tourism consists in fruitfully combining, in a same context, work experience and vacation, in tourist facilities designed to improve productivity, thanks to the relaxation of a welcoming and stimulating environment.
Project partners members and tourism operators with deep and proven experience in their sector will attend the conference and will share their experience on workation and on other innovative forms of tourism. Experts from the Apulian tourism sector and professors from the Tourism Area of the Department of Economic Sciences will also participate, with a focus on the trends and changes in the Apulian tourism market, as well as on the innovations and hybridizations in tourism supply.
In the second part of the Workshop, a round table at the presence of the project partners members, professors from the University of Salento together with Italian and foreign tourist operators and experts will be held and the impact of the new directions of tourism on the economy and in the social sphere will be discussed.
The project aims at encouraging a significant improvement of the business competences and the ability to develop a potential tourism market segment, with a focus on the principles of inclusion and sustainability. Beneficiaries of the project results will be cross-border hospitality operators, i.e. hotel chains, agritourisms, resorts and induced local production.
Other activities will be implemented in May, June and in October 2024, under a transnational cooperation among the countries involved, in order to test of tools thought to respond to the growing needs of tourists who appreciate nature, culture and traditions of the territories visited.