Poc Veneto Region

Project summary.
On March 25, 2021, Venice turned 1,600 years old. During 2021 events and celebrations commemorated a unique episode in the national and European landscape.
Among the pieces of history of the Serenissima Republic, the reclamation of the Po Delta stands out for the boldness of the project and the positive impacts generated.
In fact, the Po Delta is the result of a gigantic work of hydraulic engineering, carried out between 1600 and 1604, commissioned by Doge Marino Grimani and directed by Provveditore alle Acque Alvise Zorzi. With the Taglio del Po di Tolle the youngest land in Italy took shape, an environment that the river built and man shaped.
Today this corner of Italy, recognized as a MAB (Man and the Biosphere) Area by UNESCO, is home to a wide variety of ecosystems of natural or anthropogenic origin.

The new brand adopted by the Region: Veneto, The Land of Venice entices us to tell the ancient history of a young land in an original way. Going back with the mind to the reclamation works carried out by the Serenissima Republic is an action that pushes all operators in the area to think big and look to a future of development where tourism can play a fundamental role. The OGD Startup Plan, the result of the concerted work between public and private stakeholders, represents the starting point for renewing the Delta's offer and is the basis for the writing of this project. The Veneto Region with this call for proposals provides one more tool to realize a dream: that of returning to tourism for the area, with a long-term logic, sustainable because respect for nature is associated with the quality of life of residents.

The project “The Doge's Dream” which is applying as a destination project to this call for proposals and has the overall objective of seizing the phase of tourism restart in the post-Covid period as an opportunity to empower the destination tourism strategy.

The project aims to stimulate synergy among tourism consortium, business networks, tourism and territorial promotion associations and public bodies in order to regenerate the seaside tourism that has made the coastal resorts strong and give the right direction to the dynamics of tourism development of a vast rural reality endowed with great historical and environmental value.
 

For this reason, the project is divided into three axes:

• Integrated promotion: making the destination known in domestic and foreign markets with a single brand and coordinated image and an integrated offer between complementary themes and between seaside and rural resorts.
• Product innovation: improve services and organizational systems to incorporate changes resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Cohesion of the tourism system: strengthen collaboration among operators to make the Po and Delta area a competitive tourism destination.

Description of the tourist offer promoted through the project “The Doge's Dream”

The basis of the project “The Doge's Dream” is a sufficiently representative tourist offer of the destination “Po and its Delta”. The project will try to intercept new and expanding market segments (bike and boat bicycle tourism, gastronomic tourism and new forms of river and accessible tourism).

The “Doge's Dream” project aims to promote the following products:

• the product related to the beach as a “core” element of the territory and as a catalyst of overnight stays. Specifically, these are medium-long term vacations concentrated in the summer months. Special attention is given to the open-air vacation and contact with nature.
• the hiking-related product by promoting integrated proposals designed to combine the offer with complementary services and activities, specifically investing in the promotion of nature discovery proposals of biotopes and reserves on foot, by bicycle and by boat. Special attention is paid to school and accessible tourism.
• Cycling and the trend of cycling tourism in the project takes on its own dimension related to the enhancement of long cycle routes of national interest (cycling vacation) or day trips useful for enriching the offer of short or long stays (cycling vacation). In addition to cycling in the project there are actions to promote sports tourism.
• Gastronomy is also of increasing value for the Po destination and its Delta, the project includes promotional actions to encourage the meeting between tourists and producers of fish and agricultural products.

As part of the Project, the Biosfera Network of businesses has carried out a series of events and initiatives to promote the area, participated in fairs on the theme of cycling tourism, produced a promotional brochure and updated the website biosferanetwork.it.

Download the brochure