Part 1:
When we were told to choose something that worries us, I immediately knew that I wanted to do something revolving around Venice. Many aspects of the city interested me such as the rise of sea levels, mass tourism, or the loss of culture.
Indeed, the city of Venice is rapidly decaying. The population of the city has dramatically dropped with only 51.000 residents left compared with 174 000 in 1951. Since I am part Venetian I was able to witness first-hand how much the city has changed for the worst. Speaking to residents, boutique owners and artisans it is clear that the city is becoming less and less liveable.
Part 2:
Through surveys targeting Venetians and conversations with professionals such as the founder of an organisation fighting for the preservation of the city, I came to see that I could have a bigger impact on tourism and culture than on the problem of global warming.
An important factor of this deterioration is the unprofitable and unregulated mass tourism that crowds the streets. Many visitors only come for the day, walk around the city, buy a cheap souvenir, leave their trash and vacate the city. Therefore, many tourists experience a minuscule percentage of what the city can offer and do not contribute to its cultural preservation as very little money is spent in museums, artisan shops, and some areas of the city are unbearably crowded.
Part 3: “There is no other way to explore Venice than as one the herd.” (Duncan Fallowell)
I decided that I wanted to introduce change in the way tourists experience the city of Venice, targeting the less profitable ones. The aim would be to promote more sustainable tourism that would support Venice’s dying culture. A way to bring to life the disappearing corners of the city by unblocking some unbearably congested tourist routes.
After further secondary research, I found that there were three main types of tourists in Venice: The lodgers, the cruisers, and the strollers. I decided to focus on the latter as they are the ones forming the mass (representing 80 % of tourists) and are the least beneficial to the city. The strollers only come for the day, stress infrastructure, block some parts of the city, spend very little and leave their waste.
Tourists stay on these well defined lines where you will find most commercial activities like retail and souvenir shops
This tourist group would become a stakeholder because the project would help them have a better, more authentic experience of the city. Venetians would also benefit from this a more sustainable and responsible tourism would be encouraged, thus, improving Venetians’ quality of life and helping the preservation of their culture.
Part 4:
Tourism is important to the city and brings many benefits, but it has to be better managed.
Many academics and researchers believe that cultural tourism is the way to keep a good place in the competitive tourism market while improving the local well-being. They are the ones visiting cultural institutions, trying the traditional foods, buying quality local products and spending the night in the host location.
In Venice, this group is what brings most to the city although they are the smallest one. Consequently, I thought that it would be interesting to try to transform these stroller tourists into sort of cultural tourists.
In order to appeal to tourists, I needed to understand what they are looking for. A few key elements stood out: authenticity, control over what they experience, engagement, interactivity, active sensory experiences.
The next stage was to combine these elements to captivate the strollers.
Part 5:
I decided that I would create my own Venice guide, which would be to incite the tourists to do something they would not have done on their own or with a standard guide.
It would be interesting to create a story-based guide, something that would make it fun and engaging to pay a ticket to visit an exhibition. This aims to create an adventure. Creating a route, involving three cultural sites, that people have to follow to unravel a story/mystery, while learning about the city’s history.
Success for me would be to motivate a group of strollers to visit 3 cultural sights (if possible, off the beaten track):
- A museum/gallery
- A Church
- An artisan shop
I could get the artisans and cultural institutions involved to support the narrative of the guide and to get the tourists to interact with the locals playfully, and find authenticity in their experience.
To get a better idea of the competition and to find inspiration, I researched the types of guides that could be found in Venice. There are few elements that these guides feature, which would be good to keep in mind for the project:
- Maps
- History and art history of the city
- Artisans and small boutiques
- Sometimes unusual corners of the city
The point would be to encourage the tourists to do something they would not have done on their own or with another guide.