A Taste of Venice: meet our partners Vivo Venetia

Vivo Venetia: sustainable tourism in Venice

Vivo Venetia – sustainable tourism in Venice

Sustainable tourism in Venice: the delicacy of the historical context, the exceptional nature of its structure, the numerical disproportion between inhabitants and visitors make Venice a unique city.

A city where it is getting harder and harder to reconcile the need of generating income for the local economy and at the same time preserving the environment.

The relationship between residents and tourists has been for many years one of the crucial subjects for the local city government and for the quality of life of all residents.

Vivo Venetia – sustainable tourism in Venice

Too little tourism and the city cannot live. Too much tourism and the city cannot live the same.

The search for balance is especially difficult.

The solution has to be a different kind of tourism: sustainable tourism.

Sustainable tourism means a tourism which is committed to generating a low impact on the surrounding environment and community by acting responsibly while generating income and employment for the local economy and aiding social cohesion.

In Venice this has become everyday more imperative and thanks to companies like Vivo Venetia, who are dedicated to connect local artisans and business with the visitors, a glimpse of light could be ahead.

Gondole in San Trovaso

When I started to dream about bringing a group on international bloggers to Venice to experience My Venice with the blog tour A Taste of Venice, Vivo Venetia immediately appeared to me as the first choice for a partner to carry forward a project like the one I had in mind.

As soon as I met Cecile Rousset, the founder of this very young start-up company, we hit it off and realized that we had the same aim in mind: to show the world that Venice is not just fake Murano glass and cheap Chinese made masks. There is a large network of real authentic and talented Venetian people, proud of their city and their heritage, who are just waiting for the world to discover them!

But let’s hear it directly from Cecile of Vivo Venetia.

• Introduce yourself to our readers: who is your company and what does it do?

We are a group of young people living in Venice and in the Veneto region.

We care about the future of this gorgeous city and the culture which has sprung from it for all these centuries! This is the meaning of VivoVenetia, which literally translates as Live the whole Veneto region.

Our aim is to create a multilingual portal dedicated to sustainable tourism where local businesses, artisans, artists can showcase their activites, putting them in direct contact with the visitors as well as local residents, which are then given a chance to live the real Venice and Veneto Region.
Basically we built a commercial mediation, a bridge between supply and demand, in order to assist and guide those curious travellers who are looking for high quality experiences and activities.
At a local level, tourists become “temporary residents” and at the same time, local residents can discover a new way to experience their region or city, only a few steps away from home.
Our aim is to modify the stereotyped image of Venice throughout the world and open the Veneto region to international tourism, by showcasing a sustainable tourism network of local artisans and businesses to a larger international audience.

Book binding by Fabricharte – photo by Vivo Venetia

• How long have you been operating in Venice?

VivoVenetia was born in 2015, we are a really young start up!
Our team is multicultural: we are in our thirties, all Venetian “at heart” and from different but complementary backgrounds, going from international sustainable development to tourism and euro-project management.

VivoVenetia was born to have a real impact on sustainable tourism, with a positive and energetic attitude, brought forward by a group of passionate people, keen to contribute to a human and ethic development in the Veneto Region.
It is our life project.

Glass Blowing photo by Vivo Venetia

• What do you love the most about Venice?

We love its beautiful fragility, its longevity and its being in and out history, teacher of knowledge and discrepancy throughout time!

This city is the crossroad of different cultures, a bridge between Orient and Occident. It symbolizes the indissociable bond between soil and water.

Cecile, the French born founder of Vivo Venetia, has chosen to settle in Venice after travelling a lot around the world, mainly because of its unique character.

Venice is like a mother: she knows how to cuddle you and sing lullabies, but she may as well scold you when you take the wrong road. Then she forgives you. She touches your heart and lifts your spirits. Its waters act as a mirror, helping you to look deep inside and truly understand yourself.

Cecile Rousset meets the bloggers of A Taste of Venice and introduces Vivo Venetia and sustainable tourism in Venice

• What would you change in Venice?
  

  Vivo Venetia unique experiences in Venice

The citizens are all tired with “hit-and-run” mass tourism, which drains the city at a cultural and ecological level without boosting the economy. We want to show respect to Venice and its inhabitants, and contribute to preserve the “soul” of the city.

Many small businesses, which offer typical products, are struggling to survive mainly because of their inability to promote themselves efficiently; in fact, they are never really able to reach the end users.

When you are unable to close sales, any speech about changing things are empty words. What we would like to see, instead, is a direct contact between supply and demand, thanks precisely to the opportunities offered by e-commerce.

We would like to be able to contribute to change the actual ability to integrate tourism to sustainable socio-economic dynamics, creating a network of thousands of new Venetian people, from all around the world, made of visitors and tourists in love with Venice and messengers of its peculiarity.

For information contact:

Vivo Venetia

Vivo Venetia – sustainable tourism in Venice

Website: www.vivovenetia.com

Facebook: Vivo Venetia

Twitter: VivoVenetia

Instagram: VivoVenetia

Thank you again Cecile and all the staff of Vivo Venetia for helping A Taste of Venice become a reality – you made this blog extra special!