Project presentation - Vermenagna-Roya

Vermenagna-Roya.
Our heritage and your tourism

An ALCOTRA OS3.1 “Cultural natural heritage” project, with the aim of increasing the development of sustainable tourism in the territory, funded by the ERDF European Regional Development Fund with a contribution of € 1,030,860.31, for an overall budget amounting to € 1,212,776.84.

The project “Vermenagna-Roya. Our heritage and your tourism” began with an assessment shared by the Municipalities of Borgo San Dalmazzo and Breil-sur-Roya: the Vermenagna and Roya valleys on the two sides of Colle di Tenda, are often considered merely as roads of passage and not as stop off or arrival places. Instead the territory has a rich varied landscape and cultural potential that deserves to be enhanced.

Thanks to a common cross-border strategy that is based on the concept of “Vermenagna-Roya territory” the project wants indeed to create the conditions to develop the territory, beginning with tourism.

The crux of the project is the rich tangible and intangible cultural heritage that characterizes the two valleys. For centuries, this heritage has known common development lines, creating a cohesive cultural context on the two sides of the Alps and, in many ways, representing an extraordinary unicum.

The project intends to pursue the following goals :

Raise awareness about the memory, history and shared values that unite the two valleys;
Develop and experiment new organizational methods and new tourism products;
Promote the systemization of the tourism-cultural offer at a cross-border territory level;
Seasonally adjust and relocate the tourist offer;
Refunctionalize cultural heritage.

Activities, impact and results

The project “Vermenagna-Roya. Our heritage and your tourism” intends to revitalize the cross-border territory of the two valleys by focusing on the rich cultural heritage.

This work began with the careful mapping of the heritage – tangible and intangible – and a series of studies and development plans which, starting from the strengths and weaknesses of the territory, can guide future enhancement actions.

This analysis action is accompanied by a series of activities aimed at improving visitor hospitality, optimizing cross-border tourism communication through a common graphic identity and developing shared tools. It is a question of strengthening the cultural tourist offer with the definition of specific local and cross-border cultural itineraries and enhancing cultural events and heritage, increasing the level of competence of tourism professionals. It is also planned to enhance some strategic cultural sites through redevelopment, reorganization and refunctionalization interventions.

The activities that will be implemented, the cross-border approach and the extensive partnership implemented within the project will enhance the two sides of Colle di Tenda, raising awareness among the local population on the value and importance of shared historical heritage, increasing the number of visitors and creating a unitary tourist-cultural system that recomposes a historically united territory from the medieval Middle Ages to the mid-1800s.