The project’s debut at TTG in Rimini
America, Canada, Australia…all crazy about the Sicans
Balances and perspectives in the words of Pierfilippo Spoto and Laura Massoni
Slow tourism with human warmth promoted by the “Sicani Villages” project on the stage of the TTG Travel Experience in Rimini.
The Italian event that brings together all the world’s tourism communities in a single event, this year was dedicated to the theme of utopia with the emblematic title of “The year of Utopia. Live. Believe.” And the municipalities and companies that have formed the tourism business network “Sicani Villages,” thanks to European funds from Gal Sicani, strongly believe in the investment that sees the focus of their utopia, human capital.
Twenty-nine municipalities and nineteen mostly family-run businesses, together in a project to promote and enhance tourism in an area that ranges from the mountains to one of the most beautiful coastlines in Sicily, complete with the Scala dei Turchi.
Laura Massoni
“FromOctober 11 to 13,” says Laura Massoni, whose company Pure Sicily is the project leader, “in our large booth at the Rimini fair, we officially presented the network of ‘Sicani Villages‘ to an international limelight. And we were very pleased with the direct meetings we had with the operators in the sector. There is a lot of curiosity and a lot of interest in our proposal, especially from countries such as the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia and the Latin countries of South America.
In keeping with the theme chosen this year by the event now in its 60th year, the utopia of “Sicani Villages” puts experiential and relational tourism at the center of the project.
Those who choose to immerse themselves in the world of the Sicans,” says Laura Massoni, “are mainly people who lead hectic lives, bombarded by social media and dominated by technology, people always with their cell phones in their hands, who arrive on vacation in Sicily, stay in a four-star hotel and go to visit the Valley of the Temples and the island’s most beautiful monuments, but who are also looking for something more.
And that something extra is, precisely, human capital. A capital made up of unique experiences and relationships with tailor-made itineraries.
In short,” says Massoni, “a human and slow tourism, a tourism of roots, understood not only from a geographical point of view, but also from an existential one. A return to the origins, to simplicity, to slowness. I would say, almost, a philosophical interaction.
Because the beauty of this corner of Sicily, lies in the people who unhurriedly tell you their story, who offer you bread “cunzato” accompanying it with a good glass of wine and a complicit smile, who accompany you to the top of the bell tower of a small village perched on the mountains and make you ring, perhaps for the first time in your life, that bell that at each toll makes you laugh from happiness, like a child.
Pierfilippo Spoto
The experience,” says Pierfilippo Spoto, in Rimini with “Sicani Villages” as contact person for Gal Sicani, “is not the bread “cunzato,” but who is behind it.
From Sant’Angelo Muxaro, a small town in the Agrigento area in the heart of the Sicani, Spoto after a few years living in the metropolis of London, returned to his native Sicily and has been involved in experiential tourism for twenty-one years.
At first,” he says, “they took me for a fool. Today there is also Europe helping us to do something we Sicilians are not always very good at: networking. The generational change is fundamental, also because of the greater attention to communication and media in general: it is good to see that where young people have arrived or returned, there has been a change of pace. In the Sicani territory, associationism has been of great importance: alone we go nowhere, together we win.
In Rimini, Spoto brought a TV crew with him: Also to tell,” he says, “through our social channels, to the people of the Sicani what the potential of the area is, for a greater awareness of its resources… Just a few days ago, I was accompanying a group of Belgian tourists; at one point, they were struck by three elderly people sitting on a bench. They asked me what they were doing there without doing anything, we asked them and, among other things, it turned out that when they were young they had emigrated to Belgium. From there started stories, laughter, memories of another era. And happy Belgians. Because what for us may be trivial, or simply in the norm, for others is beautiful.
A precious treasure trove made up of people and their stories, encounters of the soul on the road to a curiosity that is not in a hurry, rather one that makes slowness an added value.
With the prospect of Agrigento as the capital of culture in 2025, we are now counting on a flywheel effect for the entire Sican territory.
We are already at work,” says Laura Massoni, “to present our project of enhancing the artistic and cultural heritage, handicrafts and agri-food sector of the Terre Sicane in the most interesting showcases of the tourism sector.
Text by Angela Mannino
