The Open Space Technology Forum held in Cagnano Varano was a blast!
The event was organised by Cagnano Varano Municipality in collaboration with the Gargano National Park, lead partner of the GWA project, and took place at the "PalaDiGennaro".

the event brought to light Ideas, proposals, visions of the local stakeholders, who are the real protagonists of the territory and share a common goal of promoting the development of the Gargano area. With water at the center of participatory discussions, the event was an opportunity to think that the "remainder" can become "return". Because the goal of the GWA (acronym of Green Waters Adventure) project is to promote water sports and adventure tourism to support the economic growth of the territories, favor the seasonal adjustment of tourist flows and intensify cooperation in the lower Adriatic area. 

The project is implemented in cooperation with other public and private actors such as Polytechnic of Bari, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Albania, the Tourist Organization of Ulcinj – Montenegro, the Molise Municipality of Castel San Vincenzo, the Municipality of Cagnano Varano, the Puglia Region with the Department of Tourism, Economy of Culture and Territorial Enhancement, in collaboration with Euromediterranea.

«The project aims to strengthen cooperation between Italy, Albania and Montenegro to develop lake, river, marine-coastal water tourism - explains Costanzo Cascavilla, project coordinator. The initiative seeks to create links among these tourist assets by linking them with other assets of adventure tourism, i.e. paths, bikes, speleology, horse riding, food and wine, culture. All those forms of tourism, therefore, different from coastal tourism which is already very present in the territories involved. The goal is to develop tourism in the inland areas by valorising rivers, waters and above all the lakes such as the Lake of Shkoder in Albania, the Lake of Castel San Vincenzo in Molise, the Lakes of Varano and Lesina in Apulia”.

The OST Forum was led by Emmanuele Daluiso, an expert in local development planning policies and was actively participated by around 200 people, including students from local schools ("Maria Immacolata" high school of languages and human sciences, the "De Rogatis-Fiortitto" high school, "D'appolito" high school as well as representatives of public bodies, tourist and cultural operators, sporting, cultural and recreational associations, operators in the nautical, hospitality,catering, transport services sectors. The forum was attended, among others, by the Councilor for Tourism of the Municipality of Cagnano Varano, Michele Coccia, the Mayor of Lesina, Primiano L. Di Mauro, the Councilor for the Environment of the Municipality of Ischitella, the marine biologist Lucrezia Cilenti.

Many topics emerged and then were explored in depth through working groups, as a way of encouraging discussion and participation. Among them we can list the follwoing: the enhancement of the Gargano coast and paths, promotion of slow mobility, supporting narrative capital through sustainable tourism, guaranteeing the accessibility to people with disabilities and many other proposals were collected and analysed.

Mr Maurizio Varriano, coordinator of the Italian Villages of Excellence and moderator of the event commented: «The project aims at targeting new segments of tourist demand in the involved territories, also with a view to the replicability of the results that will be obtained. Mr Pasquale Pazienza, president of the Gargano National Park, added: «In this project, the park authority intends to create a sort of hardware platform within which to develop a software application putting all territorial actors that promote tourism in the conditions of getting in touch with market actors in order to develop the of aquatic and adventurous sports tourism segment, perhaps the most appropriate to develop off-season tourism».

The event was attended and participated also by project partners from Montenegro and Albania as well as representatives of the Republic of Lithuania, who elaborated a report to develop a common strategy for the management of sports-adventure tourism that will be released soon.