ArhKonTur

ArhKonTur Final Conference

Online event 20 January 2021

The closing conference for the project ArhKonTur – Archaeological Conceptual Tourism Guiding will be held online through the Google Meet platform, on January 20, 2021. The event is organized by Libertas International University.

The conference will present results of the project for educating new tourist guides specialized for archaeological sites in Croatia, and host experts in the fields of tourism, cultural management and heritage interpretation, thus providing space for discussion on cultural and archaeological tourism in our changing times.

The event is divided into two main themes, archaeological tourism and interpretation of archaeological sites as part of Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe.

We are pleased to welcome distinguished international speakers from diverse areas of expertise, Alessandra Priante, Regional Director for Europe at UNWTO, Greg Richards, professor at Tilburg University, the leading expert in the fields of cultural and creative tourism, award-winning historian, author and broadcaster Bettany Hughes and Stefano Dominioni, Director at the European Institute of Cultural Routes for the Council of Europe.
The ArhKonTur project is concerned with a very specific issue of specialized guiding principles in presenting archaeological sites, special interest guiding and heritage interpretation organized as an education programme for vulnerable groups.

It is closely linked to archaeological tourism, cultural tourism, creative tourism and especially applicable for archaeological Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe, in line with the UNWTO Kyoto Declaration, the CoE Santiago de Compostela Declaration, principles of the ICOMOS Interpretation Charter as well as other relevant documents supporting sustainable cultural tourism and responsible and inclusive interpretation of heritage sites.

This project is implemented through the European Social Fund within the Operational Programme Efficient Human Resources 2014 – 2020, for the purposes of training and improving access of vulnerable groups to the labour market in the tourism and hospitality sector.

The target group consists of unemployed people over the age of 54 and under the age of 25, who owing to the specialized training provided by experts from both the archaeological and tourism sector gained competences for organizing specialized tours on archaeological sites in seven different counties of Croatia.

This contributes to the promotion of cultural heritage often overlooked by tourists and provides the basis for further specialized trainings on innovative practices in cultural tourism and heritage interpretation.

Moderator - Vlasta Klarić (Croatia) Vlasta Klarić, expert in tourism, cultural tourism, cultural routes, project management, tourism education, destination management, is employed at the Ministry of Tourism of Croatia as the EUSAIR Facility Point thematic expert. She acted as general secretary to UNPAH, Croatian Association of Independent Travel Agencies, managing and coordinating national projects, events and conferences. She was a national coordinator for the project of development of Roman Emperors Route and DWR and member of Scientific Committee of the Route. Acting as senior lecturer at Libertas International University, she lectures cultural tourism and cultural heritage for tourism. Acted also as President to National Partnership for Cultural Tourism under Croatian Ministry of Tourism patronage. Within Enlarged Partial Agreement on Cultural Routes (EPA) she is acting as an expert. She is a member of several tourism, heritage and interpretation associations. Join us Here! Alessandra Priante (Italy) Alessandra Priante is the Director of the Regional Department for Europe at UNWTO, the UN agency devoted to tourism which promotes sustainable and responsible tourism globally. Previously she worked as Chief of multilateral international relations (UNWTO, OECD and EUROPE) and tourism policy issues for the Ministry of Agricultural Food, Forestry, and Tourism Policies in Italy. She has also actively participated in the research and analysis for preparing the National Strategic Plan for Tourism 2017-2022. She holds a first degree in business at the top Italian business university, Università Luigi Bocconi, an Executive MBA at Luiss Guido Carli University and an International Master in Audiovisual Management. She successfully merged her strong experience in corporate finance and M&A operations with her cultural expertise, joining since 2002 the Italian Ministry of Culture - Direction for Cinema, with the task of restructuring public finances for the culture sector. She has created and participated in various international think tanks and also represented Italy in all international and European Institutions devoted to culture. As an expert for the Middle East area, she has been appointed Government Envoy to the Middle East (UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrein, Kuwait) in the years 2010-2015 in the role of Italian Diplomatic Cultural Representative for the Gulf Area, with the task of promoting Italian culture and education. She is the author of numerous publications and books in her fields of study, and teaches culture management and international audio-visual analysis for postgraduate students at several major universities in Italy. Join us Here! Greg Richards (The Netherlands) Greg Richards is Professor of Placemaking and Events at Breda University of Applied Sciences and Professor of Leisure Studies at the University of Tilburg in The Netherlands. He has worked on projects for numerous national governments, national tourism organisations and municipalities, and he has extensive experience in tourism research and education, with previous posts in the UK and Spain. His current research interests centre on the creative use of space for cultural, social and economic development. Join us Here! Bettany Hughes (United Kingdom) Bettany Hughes is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster. Her speciality is ancient and mediaeval history and culture. A Scholar at Oxford University, she has taught at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and lectured at Cornell, Bristol, UCL, Maastricht, Utrecht, Manchester and Swansea. She is a Tutor for Cambridge University’s Institute of Continuing Education, a Research Fellow of King's College London and recently joined the New College of the Humanities as Professor of History. She has written and presented over 50 TV and radio documentaries for numerous TV channels and her programmes have now been seen by over 250 million worldwide. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her work in promoting history, among which the prestigious European Helena Vaz de Silva Prize for promoting Public Awareness of Cultural Heritage, being the first woman ever to receive this award. She is also an honorary, founding patron of Classics For All - a national campaign to get classical languages and the study of classical civilisations back into state schools. Join us Here! Stefano Dominioni (Italy) Stefano Dominioni received his Ph.D., M.Phil. and M.A. from Yale University, a M.A. from the Université d’Aix-Marseille and a B.A. from the University of Milan. He is Executive Secretary of the Council of Europe Enlarged Partial Agreement on Cultural Routes (EPA) and Director of the European Institute of Cultural Routes (Luxembourg). He ensures EPA Governing Board and Statutory Committee operations, management of the European Institute of Cultural Routes and coordination with the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe. He is responsible for the implementation of Joint Programmes with the European Commission, and cooperation with other international organisations such as UNESCO, UNWTO, OECD and OEI. Join us Here! ArhKonTur – Final Conference Download full Agenda and Speaker information