The GWA Final event in Foggia was organised by the GWA Lead Partner, Ente Parco Nazionale del Gargano, on 24 November and took place at the Department of Economy, Management and Territory of the University of Foggia.The event was aimed at explaining the development perspectives of water sport tourism in Apulia, Molise, Albania and Montenegro, as wella as the GWA project main results and possbile future developments. 

The GWA project was a joint effort of 5 partners (: Ente Parco Nazionale del Gargano, Politecnico di Bari Turistička Organizacija Ulcinj, Ministria e Kulturës, Comune di Castel San Vincenzo) who pooled forces to investgate the developmetn potential of water and adventure tourism in inlad areas of Gargano, Molise and the Shhodra cross-border area.

The project took step from a trend caused by the Covid-19 crisis, which saw the exponential growth of the demand of water leisure and tourism services in inland and mountain areas. Based on these trends, GWA worked to support the creation of a qualified cross-border offer of water adventure tourism in Italy-Albania and Montenegro with the final goal of helping the revitalisation of impacted communities, valorising the cultural, landcape and environmental heritage as well as boost the expansion of trade and services.

During the event, Mr Pasquale Pazienza, President of Ente Parco Nazionale del Gargano, stressed the importance of the water tourism–territory relationship, and explained how Green Waters Adventure was aimed at developing a new strand of water tourism in Italy, Albania and Montenegro based on the sustainable and innovative tools and by means of the cooperation among local and national public authorities and terrotorites reach in lakes and rivers. The project was particularly implemented in the lakes of Shkodra (on the Albania-Montenegro border), Castel San Vincenzo (Molise), Varano and Lesina (Apulia).

To project explored innovative and sustainable touristic services that could be compatible with the territories that will receive a new flux of tourists and that now need to be better equipped. To this end, the project worked to establish contact with local operators and informing them about the opportunities linked to the project. Through local seminars and Open Space Technology Fora, they were involved into expressing their ideas and concerns, acquiring information, network, and find common solutions as to boost smart services for water and adventure tourism in their particular areas.  The result of these consultation and participatory actions was the creation of a "Catalogue of water sports, sites and water sports operators", a "Catalogue of tourism point of interest" and a umber of touristic packages of the lakes of Shkodra, Castel San Vincenzo, Varano and Lesina, which are now part of a common, cross-border smart tourism brand.

As for the technological part, the project created a Geographic Information System (GIS) Platform which works as an open access geo-atlas database where georeferenced data can be upldoaded and shared among the four sites. Also, each involved territory is put in a network of mobile small pavillons which work as cross-border Info points, tourist hub, GPS and WI-Fi spot, and weather control unit.

To know more about the GWA Final event, watch this video and visit our Facebook and Instagram pages!

Photos of the event here.