A journey through the history and art of the Venetian defensive works, listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites.
From the Unesco Italia official website
The transnational serial site “The Venetian Works of Defence between the 16th and 17th centuries: Stato da Terra – western Stato da Mar” consists of six structures located in Italy, Croatia, and Montenegro, extending for over 1000 km from Lombardy to the eastern Adriatic coast.
The organization and defenses of the Stato da Terra, which protected the Republic of Venice from other European powers to the northwest, and the Stato da Mar, which safeguarded maritime routes and ports in the Adriatic Sea towards the Levant, were necessary to support Venice’s expansion and power. With the introduction of gunpowder for military purposes, significant changes occurred in military techniques and architecture, leading to the design of fortifications known as “modern” or bastioned.
These extensive and innovative defensive networks established by the Republic of Venice have exceptional historical, architectural, and technological value, contributing to the configuration of the landscape and enhancing the visual quality of the six structures, as well as the urban and defensive structures dating back to earlier (medieval) and more recent periods (such as modifications and additions from the Napoleonic and Ottoman periods).
The UNESCO site includes the defensive works in Bergamo, Palmanova, and Peschiera del Garda for Italy, Zadar and Šibenik for Croatia, and Kotor for Montenegro.
The fortified city of Bergamo, located northeast of Milan, represents the westernmost extent of the defense system of the Venetian Stato da Terra, and its fortifications, built between 1561 and 1588, replaced the still-existing sections of the walls from the Roman era. The perimeter includes the Venetian fortified system in its complexity of inner (bastioned) and outer walls, with fortified elements such as the Forts of San Vigilio and San Domenico, the Cittadella, and the Rocca.
Palmanova was founded in 1593 north of Aquileia, between Venice and Trieste, and designed to accommodate twenty thousand people. The city’s fortress, intended to be the strategic center to neutralize Ottoman attacks from the East and Austrian attacks, is a 70-hectare urban core contained within three concentric walls, two Venetian walls, and the outermost French perimeter, giving Palmanova its extraordinary nine-pointed star shape. Today, it is one of the best-preserved examples of Renaissance military architecture and ideal cities.
The fortified city of Peschiera, on Lake Garda, served as a link between Venice and its western territories beyond the River Mincio. It is characterized by a pentagonal plan and includes the inhabited center and water features such as the Canale di Mezzo, a branch of the Mincio, navigable since Roman times. When the fortress of Peschiera came under the control of the Republic of Venice, the fortifications were renovated, introducing earthworks and bastions at the five corners of the medieval city walls.
For further information, it is recommended to visit the official website of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre responsible for the inscription of World Heritage sites.
For historical and artistic insights, especially for teachers and students, it is recommended to visit the website of the “World Heritage in Schools” (webpage in Italian), project, an initiative supported by the Italian Heritage Association World Heritage (webpage in Italian) in collaboration with MIBACT and MIUR to promote the dissemination of UNESCO’s core principles in schools, mainly through educational portals.
The Minister of Tourism together with with the Minister of Economy and Finance, following an agreement reached at the Unified Conference, has adopted a measure establishing the “Fund in favor of Municipalities with cultural, historical, artistic, and scenic vocations, in whose territories are located sites recognized by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites” (hereinafter referred to as the “Fund”).
The aim is to support the recovery of the tourism sector, particularly affected by the crisis generated by the Covid-19 pandemic, in municipalities characterized by a marked tourist-cultural vocation. The initiative is aimed at and supports Italian cities that are part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. The establishment of the aforementioned Fund primarily responds to the objective of revitalizing the Italian tourism sector by supporting the development of projects aimed at enhancing the cultural heritage in cities where the presence of sites listed on the UNESCO heritage list is a determining factor in attractiveness and tourism competitiveness.
The interventions consist of initiatives related to digital tourism promotion and valorization tools, tourist itineraries, tourist marketing projects, as well as construction, structural, or plant works and setups aimed at increasing tourism enjoyment and attractiveness.
The fund has a total financial allocation of 75 million euros. The amount is distributed as follows:
Guidelines for communication and advertising of the interventions have been developed to facilitate the promotion of projects funded. An operational tool aimed at providing beneficiaries with elements to promote and disseminate the results of funded projects. Communication and advertising, in addition to being obligatory, are above all an opportunity for beneficiaries to showcase the projects implemented and the investments made through access to funding granted by the Ministry of Tourism.
INNOVATIVE TOURISM IN A JOURNEY AMONG VENETIAN DEFENSE WORKS
Agenzia per lo sviluppo e la Promozione Turistica della Provincia di Bergamo scarl received funding of xxx euros from the Italian Ministry of Tourism to implement the project described below.
Project Abstract
The project “Innovative tourism in a journey among Venetian defense works” is based on a strategy that spans cities belonging to the UNESCO Site, aimed at increasing tourist presence by at least 5% compared to the 2019 benchmark, reaching a value of at least 3,248,511 tourist presences. The strategy of the tourism enhancement project is based on creating an itinerary among the three cities, with particular attention to the international public but also to the national public from the most distant regions, offering an original sense to the visit of the territories. The target demand includes cultural tourists, interested in original interpretations of places, slow tourists who want to discover the territories connecting the three cities, and tourists no longer involved in work activities who can visit the three cities sequentially even on less crowded days.
Through various integrated actions, the following segments of demand are targeted:
To achieve the set objectives, it is considered fundamental to prioritize expenses for the production of promotional content dedicated to visitors who are about to choose their destination, as well as to invest in infrastructural interventions focused on accessibility and reception. The following strengths are identified as the basis for the tourism enhancement strategy:
Within the project, a joint promotion of the serial site will be activated, leading tourists to discover the three cities as a whole.
The tourism sector can benefit from the advantages resulting from the expected increase in presences and an increase in the average length-of-stay, thanks to a renewed interest in the activities communicated, proposed, and encouraged through innovative digital tools. These tools act as aggregators of cultural proposals, related to each other due to the same cultural spirit, originating from the values at the basis of the UNESCO site recognition. The birth of new businesses linked to the development of non-hotel realities and connected to the creation of experiences that have UNESCO values as the element of originality is foreseen.
The unified communication and promotional model aims to stimulate the creation of tourist products and visiting experiences that cut across the three cities, a segment not yet perceived by entrepreneurial activities as a source of additional attractiveness. Furthermore, the development of tourist experiences that blend UNESCO themes with other tourist products offered by each city will be incentivized, with exportable formats, with a multidisciplinary approach to tourist offer implying the development of new skills.
The presence of tourist experiences consisting of a varied range of elements becomes attractive for the international tourist who finds a way to experience multiple aspects of the national tourist offer without having to build it themselves. Moreover, the Integrated communication plan presupposes the development of common languages and coherent representations by the entrepreneurial realities of the three cities, generating a unique, recognizable, and unifying brand.
The project expects an increase in the number of specialized tourist guides and an evolution of the visiting service that includes new itineraries and modes of fruition oriented also to multimedia products.
Communicating the product, the UNESCO sites as well as their values, but specific in the enjoyment of the single component, in its innovativeness compared to the current representation of the three cities, expands the perceived offer.
It therefore contributes to attracting additional tourist flows compared to those currently choosing the three cities of the site. UNESCO represents a key element of attractiveness in some foreign markets. The audience attracted by visits to UNESCO sites is sophisticated in the enjoyment of experiences and detached from traditional seasonal contexts.
The discovery itinerary of the three cities through the UNESCO narrative invites slow fruition, with increased stays, and intercepts sections of the public free from work activities.
Thanks to this project, Bergamo, Peschiera del Garda, and Palmanova will activate for a joint promotion, leading tourists to discover the three cities as a whole. The promotion will work towards increasing tourist flows towards the individual cities and, in each of these, towards the other two. An intervention that will increase flows to the individual sites, also increasing the average length of arrivals. The enriched tourist offer and greater promotion of the historical asset will also lead to a deseasonalization of arrivals.
INTERVENTIONS
Innovative emotional video
Production of an emotional video with cuts of different durations, as a privileged promotional tool that will be adapted both for different social channels (YouTube, Meta, TikTok, etc.) and for use in offline environments (for example, LED walls/screens present in airports). The video will be dubbed in various languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish).
New web platform
The platform, through API management software, ensures bidirectional exchange of information with relative updating. When possible, the data will be updated in real-time; otherwise, the update frequency will be communicated. Bidirectional connection via API will be made possible by:
The ontological properties of the site’s contents will be adapted.
Realization of time travel experiences
Creation of visit paths consisting of points where spherical 360° videos can be viewed with reenactors allowing “time travels”. At certain points in the individual cities, markers (QR codes) will be installed that will allow visitors to access streaming from their smartphone (without downloading any apps) to immersive videos that will reproduce scenes of war or popular life during the time of the Serenissima or the main historical periods of the cities. Furthermore, the creation of a series of points where visitors can interact with virtual narrators is planned: by framing a QR code, tourists will be able to access videos, multilingual, during which actors will impersonate historical characters and narrate events, stories, and legends of the places of interest, guiding the visitor to the discovery of the transnational site.
Photographic service realization
Realization of photographic services in the three cities in the four seasons, capable of promoting the transnational site using the images made both on different social channels and on the tourist promotion sites of the three cities. The services include the use of different models of diverse ethnicities representing tourists and their emotions in visiting different attractive sites.
Press blog tour
Organization of blog tours and press tours to promote the visit of the three cities.
Influencers
Involvement of influencers (even very vertical ones) to promote the visit of the 3 cities.
Online advertising
Google display and search, Meta, TikTok.
B2B Marketing
Identify B2B marketing strategies to implement actions for an active community.
Updating tourist promotion sites
New engineering, updating, and technological adaptation of the tourist promotion sites of the three cities, with particular reference to dedicated sections in the three portals to the transnational site and to the site and the Venetian Fortress site with integration and interoperability with italia.it.
Infopoint repositioning
Repositioning and new setup of the info-point with a dedicated area to the UNESCO site (Visitor center) with the production of large panels, videos, interactive totems illustrating the three cities and the entire transnational site. The multimedia contents on the UNESCO site can also be used to implement existing Infopoints in other cities, dedicating a specific section to the presentation of the UNESCO site.
