I’ve heard about the CulTY project through a friend who convinced me to participate. “You studied culture and you work in the touristic section, you are the ideal candidate for this project” he said. I was triggered. I started gathering my ideas, giving form to my presentation, biting my nails to see if I got accepted.

And I did.

And it was one of the most valuable experiences I’ve had in my life.

When I was a student in the department of Communication, Media & Culture of Panteion university, I focused on cultural administration. Several years later, when I studied drama, I realized why cultural administration is so important.

Coming from a country with rich cultural history and a touristic aspect based on it, I found it extremely interesting participating in a program with people from Italy, India and Vietnam. All of them are countries with rich culture but with totally different approach on the touristic management. And both culture and tourism are based on the interaction between people, philosophies and way of living.
When we arrived in Italy and met every participant of the program, I knew I’d have a blast. Everyone was friendly, open to new experiences, ready to know and learn from the others.

The activities we were called to attend were fun and educational. Through the collaboration between nations in the given projects we learned how to communicate, how to listen one another and accept different approaches and points of view.

Each one of us had something different to contribute and all of them combined in the spirit of team work led us to amazing results. We have learned a lot on how to expand the alternative forms of tourism and a transnational seminar is the best way to do it.

I want to thank Action Synergy who gave me the opportunity to participate in such an interesting program and meet all these wonderful people.

It was an amazing experience and I would do it all again!

Being a part of the first meeting of Project CULTY (Cultural Tourism for Youth) held at Castellammare di Stabia, Italy in June 2016, was an incredible and exhilarating experience. The camaraderie, knowledge share and openness to networking were boundless as it assembled a diverse pool of people from various countries that brought a unique mix of perspectives to the event.
The activities were mostly interactive, practical and educational where every participant contributed, thus making the conference a huge success. A couple of site visits and games kept the spirit going!

I’m grateful to OSVSWA and would specially thank Mr. Dillip Pattnaik for giving me such a wonderful opportunity to learn, network and be inspired. For the upcoming meetings, I’d highly recommend this conference to anyone who is interested in cultural tourism practices as this conference is one of its kind and gives you hands on experience like no other!

I felt an adrenaline rush in my veins when I was selected to attend the 1st Transactional Seminar at Castallammare de Stabia in Project –CulTY as youth worker of OSVSWA. Although this was my first abroad trip in my life, it was not the sole reason for this great feeling. In fact to represent my country in front of the world was the real reason. As an Engineer my career was limited to my core skills neither was I exposed to such a great opportunity. But I quickly accepted the offer as collecting people and moments holds priority for me than focusing on monotonous career.

When I landed in Italy or Italia or Land of Cattle, got mesmerized by the beauty of the city. It was like a Dream come true… Europe has always been my topmost priority on a travel list; hence,this trip was like some sort of achievement. Oh!!!!The first page of my travel diary is going to be so colorful………………

We took a train to Naples (Napoli) and then to Castellammare-Di-Stabia, the destination where the event was organized.There we interacted with our new friends from Greece, Vietnam and Italy.We interacted with each other and knew a lot about their countries, food,cultures and manymore. This just changed the way I see the world. I could feel the blending of cultural aspects by trying to learn new languages and dances, tasting different food and wines and having a lot of fun. Finally I understood the meaning of the saying: Jobs will fill your pocket, but travel will fill your soul.

The next five days I felt like on the top of the mountains and beneath the stars. All works turned into fun-loving activities. It was like an infotainment package. …All problems I had earlier seemed tiny….And the greatest feeling was when the audience got mesmerized while we presented the cultural and touristic view of our motherland India and homeland Odisha.

I participated in the event by taking a step forward and while returning I felt like that step was inward….towards me…… 
And I am really gratefully thankful to team OSVAWA for giving me such a wonderful opportunity and team RAS for arranging and executing such a marvelous event………….I would love to welcome these type of events again and again in my life……………….

Attending the 1st Seminar of “CulTY” was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had in my life. For the first time, I have participated in an event whose objective was to promote tourism and involvement of young professionals within. I presented my report on “Alternative Tourism” at the event to highlight a certain aspect of tourism.

The event was organized by RAS (Restoring Ancient Stabiae) foundation, a non-profit Italian foundation which was born to promote the ancient archaeological park of ancient stabiae.I feel grateful to be able to present my perspective among various individuals from nations that are culturally rich as of my own like Greece and Vietnam.

As we all know, tourism has been contributing to a distinct percentage of economy of a nation. The opportunities still persist to improve the management of the entire system. These opportunities were discussed and few solutions were provided to tackle the challenges faced, in this transnational event. All of us shared their own perspective of tourism and the ways to implement it in the respective countries. The seminar was supplemented by many team building activities and musical events.
HANOIKIDS!!!A perfect idea of alternative tourism. It involves in facilitating tourism in a hope to bring travelers an insight into Vietnamese culture, traditions and beautiful tourist attractions.

The best part of the event was on-site and off-site activities. It includes a visit to Villa Arianna and Sorrento. Restoring the villas which was buried in volcanic ashes from centuries is a just incredible.The seminar concluded with a delicious ancient Romanian Dinner.

A big thank to OSVSWA for making me a part of it and special thanks to the consortium for designing this beautiful project exploiting the youth potential across the Globe.

I was very grateful to have the chance to join the seminar in Castellammare di Stabia. It was kind of an eye-opener experience for me. The knowledge, the friendliness, the sense of humor and the stories of my new friends from Italy, India and Greece made me feel so enlightened and happy. Castellammare di Stabia is such a beautiful place with nice people, significant castles, super delicious food and many more things there that I think it deserves much more popularity than it does now. During the seminar, the activities I was involved in were really interesting and educational. I brought to the seminar an example of youth initiatives in cultural tourism from my city – the case study of Hanoikids, a volunteer English group of students taking foreign visitors on free tours around Hanoi. I was so, so proud and delighted when other participants said we (Hanoikids) were doing such a great job. More than that, the ideas, the feedbacks, the suggestions I received during the seminar were beyond my expectations. They are such a great help to Hanoikids for now and for other youth initiatives that we can lend a hand in the future. I was sad to leave Castellammare but more than glad to welcome other participants to my beloved Vietnam in the next training course here.  

It was a memorable 5-days experience with the seminar “Cultural tourism for youth: New approaches to the cultural tourism for youth initiatives “That I had in Castellammare di Stabia (Na) -  Italy”. All the fellows in the seminar have inspired me a lot. Your presentations at the seminar about your countries, your tourism industry, what you have done successfully and what you are facing were absolutely excellent. I have learnt a lot. Especially, the field-trips to some relics or to the center of musical instruments helped me know more about the hosting country’s culture and the way you are preserving them for tourism development. You have succeeded in bringing all the participants into your cultural tourism development situation. Congratulations and sincere thanks to your support to Vietnamese groups.

It is a privilege to be one of the participants of Culty Project who came to Castellammare del Stabia, Italy in June. Personally, I enjoyed the whole program to my heart’s content and there were a lot of new things that I have learnt. Graduated in Hospitality and Tourism Management and worked in the industry for some years, I found it fascinating to be able to exchange knowledge and experience with other participants from Greece and India. I also believe that the topic of Culture Tourism is truly a great topic worth discussing among youths. This project was a great initiative that provided motivated individual to start having their own ideas and working on various options of alternative tourism.

Another part of the project that I particularly appreciated is that all the participants had the chance to exchange their culture. First, there were some free time in the working schedule that allowed us to emerge in the local community and experience authentic South Italy culture. Furthermore, interacting and working with all other participants gave us a unique chance to share our own culture with one another. It is always a wonderful thing to me that having people from various parts of the world who joining together and experiencing the diversified culture.

After the project, I believe that I have learnt many new things that would serve me well in my future career, from new knowledge about Culture and Alternative Tourism, new understanding of different culture to how to effectively work in a culture diversified group, etc. I truly appreciate the whole experience that I have gone through during the project.

It was really amazing chance for me to come to Italy for a seminar called “Cultural Tourism for Youth”. I participated the seminar with other people from India, Vietnam, Greece and Italy. I had 5 days full of workshop and training about “Cultural Tourism”. I’ve got lots of information about the Ancient Roman’s life, about the Castellamare de Stabia. We visited some villa used to belong to the Roman for hundred years ago. Especially about the history of the Ariana Villa with the guy named Paolo.

Also the hosting organization – RAS organized some events for us the join the “Music Concert” which was performed by some professional musician. We knew and understood more about Italian Cultural and the Roman Cultural as well.
About the foods and accommodation, It was awesome. We stayed in the traning venue, we had out own room and tried a lot of good food and the staffs was really friendly and helpful to us.

Actually I enjoyed the seminar a lot and hope to come back Castellamare de Stabia as soon as I can.