Best of Romagna goes for global recognition

Nominated for Global Top100 Sustainable Destinations accolade

Best of Romagna is something rather different – you could call it a sustainable destination catalyst perhaps, or a very potent disruptive tourism innovation – and it has been nominated as a Global Top100 Sustainable Destination.

Anyway, the idea is that the ‘Destination that has everything’ needs a joined-up form of tourism that will not only give visitors really authentic life enhancing experiences at reasonable prices but also benefit local communities, local producers and local tourism champions.

The fact is that a destination like Romagna has everything that modern visitors want – sensational local seasonal food, a culinary heritage second to none, superb local wines, a visible history that goes back 5,000 years, some of the world’s great cities of art, hills and castles, rivers and valleys that rival Tuscany, festas and fairs, almost on a weekly basis, that go back a millennium – and a tradition of warm hospitality that is integral in everyone you meet. Plus it’s got 150km of beach and a massive globally-important wetland national park. And that’s just the start.

You’d imagine that such a destination would be heaving with tourists. Luckily it isn’t. So, this lovely historic region, between Venice and Florence, the Apennine Mountains and the Adriatic Sea – is as unspoiled as can be.

So Romagna is an ideal place to start a new tourism initiative that has truly sustainable benefits for everybody – local communities, curious visitors and, of course, the world at large.

The initiative is helped by the fact that the Roman via Emilia cuts through the region, mountains on one side, fertile plain on the other – through cities of art and culture with fabulous architectural heritage and great sculptures and paintings.

Not only that – the city of Ravenna was once globally-important and capital of the western Roman Empire, capital of Byzantium in Europe and capital of the Gothic Empire and Italy. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage treasure chest of nerve-tinglingly beautiful mosaics and 1500-year-old architecture.

Best of Romagna was created to put together a visitor offer that cherishes this deep local culture and the region’s rich range of delicious and beautiful local artisan, farm and sea products – great local fruits and vegetables and olives, fabulous local wines and cheeses, superb local pastas, extraordinarily good local meats and cold cuts, superb seafood – plus the wealth of local music and poetry, art and design – not forgetting fashion goods such as glorious handbags and shoes.

To help create a locally-beneficial visitor economy, Best of Romagna are now in the process of creating and marketing a series of very sustainable travel products created together with a hand-picked team of local people – including restaurateurs, hoteliers, spa operators, cookery school owners, vineyard owners, communicators, even a film director

Bypassing the commodity travel markets such as the OTAs – the travel trade in the form of personal travel agents have been engaged, FAM trips successfully hosted and the first small groups of visitors will shortly arrive to taste and experience, enjoy and relish the Best of Romagna.

Valere Tjolle