Promo - published on 14 August 2024
Source: press office Association for the Heritage of the Prosecco Hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene
Conegliano (province of Treviso), 26 July 2024. The tourism figures for the first five months of 2024, with an increase of more than 15% in presences compared to 2023 (with peaks in March with +39.6%, February +18.4% and January +23%) and 20.6% compared to 2019, highlight our commitment to the promotion of rational, efficient and seasonally adjusted tourism. In these five years that we have recently celebrated, the Association has embarked on a path aimed at protecting the landscape and promoting sustainable tourism in order to better manage the influx of visitors and reduce the pressure on the territory, from diffuse hospitality, which prioritises quality over the quantity of beds, to projects aimed at optimising logistics during the peak activity periods of the wineries, which together with the winegrowers represent a distinctive element of our territory. A territory with which we work in synergy and whose needs and ambitions we take on board, as demonstrated by the latest initiative undertaken, ‘Le Colline in ascolto’ (The Hills in Listening), a workshop involving 120 stakeholders of the territory who shared their points of view, their needs, and discussed and proposed innovative ideas to guarantee the protection and sustainable development of our beloved territory recognised by UNESCO.
Throughout the Veneto region, the Hills are the fastest-growing tourist destination, and this is also the result of our ability to combine the beauty of the landscape that has made us a World Heritage Site with an ambitious cultural offer, from the great concerts to the prestigious ‘A Hill of Books’ review, which will see three more important events in the autumn, convinced that these cultural activities are a flywheel of development and growth for the entire area, with direct and indirect effects on all the realities present.
With these words, Marina Montedoro – President of the Association for the Heritage of the Prosecco Hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene – opened the annual press conference ‘UNESCO Site The Prosecco Hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene: autumn balance sheets and projects’, held at the Town Hall of Conegliano in the presence of Giuliano Vantaggi – Site Manager of the Association and the mayor Fabio Chies, where some of the most important initiatives undertaken by the Association and those that will be organised in the coming months were presented.
As part of the most recent projects to update the Management Plan of the UNESCO World Heritage Site ‘The Prosecco Hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene’ with a 2025-2030 horizon, an event strongly desired by the Association was held on 15 July at Villa dei Cedri in Valdobbiadene: the Workshop ‘Colline in Ascolto’ , attended by 120 representatives of the territory, from the academic, association and business worlds.
Participation,’ commented Giuliano Vantaggi, ’is an essential element for discussing key issues such as landscape conservation, sustainable tourism, the liveability of the territory, and education on culture and sustainability. Seeing such a high level of participation lays fundamental foundations. In fact, the thematic tables made it possible to address crucial aspects inherent to this territory and its development that will form the structure of the Management Plan, with the aim of ensuring effective coordination between all the bodies and stakeholders. The Workshop ‘Colline in Ascolto’ represents an important step towards a sustainable future for our Hills, a work in progress that will continue in the coming months to define in detail strategic objectives and projects aimed at ensuring the conservation and enhancement of the Prosecco Hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene.
The conference was also an opportunity to present some of the major international events awaiting the Association: the Venice Film Festival where a preview, on 3 September, will be presented of the new emotional video of the Prosecco Hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene and the documentary, edited by Giovanni Carraro, of the Cammino inaugurated in 2023 which, to date, has seen more than 3500 walkers from 35 countries around the world; the World Tourism Event 2024 from 12 to 14 September in Genoa and the Ambrosetti Forum dedicated to tourism, on 18 November in CastelBrando.
In the autumn the cultural appointments continue. After the spring debut, the second edition of Una Collina di Libri will resume. The protagonists will be Aldo Cazzullo at the Teatro Accademia in Conegliano on 11 October; Nino Haratischwili at the Abbey of Follina on 14 October; Cecilia Sala in Tarzo on 22 October, while Valdobbiadene will be the protagonist in November with the final event that will be unveiled in the coming weeks.
Sport will also play a leading role, with the ever-present Prosecco Cycling on 29 September, the Trail of Prosecco superiore on 6 October, and the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Running Festival, which, in the 2024 edition, in addition to the 42 – 21 and 10 kilometre events on Sunday 1 December, will be enriched on Saturday 30 November by the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Ultra Trail, along the Cammino delle Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Valdobbiadene (Conegliano and Valdobbiadene Prosecco Hills Trail).
Another ambitious initiative that will see the light of day will be the international travelling photography exhibition, curated by National Geographic, on the wonderful natural landscapes and villages of the Prosecco Hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene. The exhibition will make its debut in Berlin, and then travel among the main European capitals.
Finally, the appointments of ‘Armonie 2024’, the festival of music for the landscape born in the wake of the Veneto City of Culture award won last year, will continue. Some of the most eagerly awaited events include the sunset concert in front of Tarzo Lake on 6 September with the Piccola Orchestra Veneta playing Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’, and the 2nd Landscape Festival ‘Notes of the Universe’ in Conegliano, Pieve di Soligo, San Pietro di Feletto, Follina, and Vittorio Veneto on the first two weekends of October with 10 events during which music will convey emotions, dialogues and reflections on the themes of brotherhood, women, metamorphosis, spirituality, passions, climate change and water, concluding on Sunday 13th October in Conegliano with the famous violinist Giuseppe Gibboni – Paganini Prize 2023 – who together with Igor Cassina – Olympic gold medallist in 2024 – will compare music and sport with the theme ‘are champions born or do they become? ‘ and the “Musica d’estate in arte e bellezza” (Summer Music in Art and Beauty) festival with concerts in rural churches in the area in collaboration with the Beato Toniolo Institute, Piccola Orchestra Veneta and young students from the Toti Dal Monte music school.
