ATTA

Adventure Travel Trade Association


E’ nostro piacere comunicare a tutti che dal mese di luglio 2022, Sicicla è diventata parte della grande ed importante famiglia di ATTA (Adventure Travel Trade Association). Questa nuova collaborazione è per noi un ulteriore slancio nella nostra mission di fare scoprire ai visitatori la Sicilia in maniera ecosostenibile.

Fondata nel 1990, l’Adventure Travel Trade Association è la più grande rete globale di leader di viaggi d’avventura. La comunità è composta da circa 30.000 tra guide individuali, tour operator, alberghi, consulenti di viaggio, enti turistici, organizzazioni di marketing e gestione delle destinazioni, educatori all’aperto, aziende di promozione e media di viaggio che condividono una convinzione e un impegno per il turismo sostenibile. Le connessioni e la creatività di questa vivace comunità si uniscono sia virtualmente che di persona per creare e fornire le soluzioni che spingono le singole attività e le comunità verso un futuro responsabile e redditizio.

I viaggi e il turismo costituiscono il più grande settore di servizi commerciali del mondo. Qualsiasi tipo di turismo ha un impatto significativo sul benessere economico delle persone e dell’ambiente. Dominato com’è da piccole imprese che lavorano in ambienti rurali o selvaggi, il turismo d’avventura è ancora più dipendente di altre forme di turismo dal capitale umano e naturale. La protezione e la promozione ponderata di queste risorse è cruciale non solo per il continuo successo dei viaggi d’avventura, ma anche per l’integrità sociale, culturale e ambientale di qualsiasi destinazione.

La comunità ATTA sostiene gli sforzi reali per affrontare le questioni associate al turismo e ai viaggi.

https://www.adventuretravel.biz/

Active and sustainable travle

By ActiveItaly

The environmental crisis we have been experiencing for some decades now, much more vast and dangerous than the health crisis of the past few months, is already destroying delicate balances and will have catastrophic repercussions on an economic and social point of view in the coming years.

A firm intervention, while keeping in mind the big picture, is necessary. Tourism can be a powerful tool to grant peace, cultural exchange, intellectual and spiritual growth of individuals and prosperity of the peoples.

At the same time, tourism is also one of the main causes of environmental and, in some cases, cultural decay.

For this reason, we feel it’s out duty, as citizens, entrepreneurs, workers, end users, travelers, to sign the Active and Sustainable Tourism Manifesto, which promotes:

  1. The conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity, through activities inside Parks, Natural Reserves and Protected Areas.
  2. Slow mobility: by bicycle, on foot and any non-motorized and eco-friendly vehicle (sail boat, horse, skis, snowshoes, etc.) are the best options to explore locally; trains and other public means of transport with low emissions are ideal for longer distances.
  3. Exercise, that contributes to any individual’s physical and psychological well-being and, as a consequence, helps avoiding overloads on the public healthcare system.
  4. Local agricultural and artisanal production, through visits and the getting acquainted with local products and producers. Promoting the short supply chain has a significant impact on lowering CO2 (and other gasses) emissions in the atmosphere, thus reducing the greenhouse effect. We also promote high quality, healthy food, and, in particular, a Mediterranean diet (and a limited consumption of meat), part of the UNESCO world heritage.
  5. Slowness as a way to explore, that allows individuals to experience things with all their senses and to get to really know the area they are visiting.
  6. Authentic and fair exchange between people, connecting travelers and locals. Every traveler should be considered a “temporary local”, with all the rights and the duties that come with it. The distribution of profits coming from tourism should significantly contribute to an improvement of the living conditions of the entire local population.
  7. Anthropic pressure reduction for overly-touristic areas, through the promotion of rural, less-known destinations and of touristic flows during low season periods.
  8. Intangible heritage: music, literature, art and traditions are our Country’s most important and unique resources, from a touristic point of view.
  9. The right to travel for everyone, regardless of their income, all the while guaranteeing accessibility to people with specific needs.
  10. Education toward more sustainable lifestyles, with special consideration for newer generations. Awareness of the problem of waste (promoting reusing, reducing and recycling, as a last resort), of pollution and climate change.

If you wish to endorse the active and sustainable tourism Manifesto, please fill in your details in the form here: https://activeitaly.it/en/manifesto-en

The “Giro della Sicilia” is a cycling sporting event organized by the GS Mediterraneo under the association of the Italian Cycling Federation (FCI). The 2020 edition includes 5 stages + 1 prologue that will take place from May 8 to 15.

The goal of the tour is to allow people to discover Sicily’s naturalistic areas of life with its agro-food products and craftsmanship, and at the same time ensure participants the competitive edge through safe uphill cycling.

For further information: https://www.girodellasicilia.com/en/

Since August 2017 Sicicla’s been proposing the new PARK & BIKE service to offer tourists accommodated outside Palermo’s city centre the opportunity to reach the downtown, safely parking the car and directly picking up a bike for a tours in the city.

The service was born from the synergy between Sicicla Ecotourism, our Tour Operator specialized on cycling holidays, and the Parking Amari of OSP srl, the cars, motorbikes and caravans’ parking located inside the Port of Palermo. Outside the limited traffic area (ZTL) the car park is also the perfect place to start a tour of the city: it is easily reachable from the main roads of the suburban connection and it offers 150 safe car parking places, supervised by staff every day from 7.00 am to 8.30 pm and a video surveillance system with h24 recording.

Booking through the website www.sicicla.it, or by telephone at +39 091 580891 (or by going directly to the parking cashier), customers can purchase the service parking their car for half- or a full- day and collect from 1 to 5 bicycles for each car, to discover the city of Palermo.

Each bicycle will be equipped with safety equipment, and a map of the city with suggested cycle routes. With small supplements, you can also rent electrical bikes, baby seats, or special bicycles (ride, mtb, hybrid bikes).

The beauties of Palermo, the Arab-Norman Unesco itinerary, the Historic Center and its characteristic streets, can finally be visited without stressing, at the slow pace of a bike ride.

At the Favorita Park, in the broader plan of “Le Domenica Favorita” event, there will be the inauguratin of a permanent MTB and cyclo-cross trail, preceeded by the creation of the picnic area. On the 9th June at 9 AM at the Scuderie Reali di Casa Natura, the inauguration will take place at the presence of the Mayor of the city and of the two sponsors Mercato San Lorenzo and Bibite Polara. After months of work – says Marco Lampasona of the Committee “La Domenica Favorita”- we have managed to achieve a stable path for MTB and CX within the Park. We hope that it will soon be the setting for national and international competitions, given the beauty of the trail of about 4-km. We will work with the Italian Cycling Federation to promote the track. Meantime, daily, all the enthusiasts car run it  for free. The project-concludes Lampasona- demonstrates how collaboration between public and private is the key-process to enhance our territory.
font: ladomenicafavorita.com

The expression “sport tourism” appeared for the first time in the 1980s in Europe and  United States, to characterize a set of activities that are a bit of tourism and a bit of sport. In addition, it is a set of activities and events that allow significant displacements from the own place of residence for at least one night and for reasons, directly or indirectly, related to sports. […] Sport tourism is one of the growing tourist industry segments.

The phenomenon of cyclotourism is an expanding phenomenon: it is the most adventurous way to travel by bicycle and a way of traveling particularly economical, coming out of the canons of mass tourism. It may, in some ways, be associated with the concept of sport tourism, since with the term”cyclotourism” we also refer to the desire to make active tourism by choosing to travel by bicycle or combined transports such as: bike-tram / bicycle-train.

In the nineties, there was a great enthusiasm for the European Union. The USSR had just collapsed, and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were determined to finally break away from Russia’s influence to join modernity. […]. In those years Europe was synonymous of future and hope, and the cultural projects that inspired these events were countless.
In this context, the project of a network of long-distance cycling routes that embraced the entire continent was born, finally contributing to unify Europe beyond any geopolitical division. The European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF), together with some British and German cycling associations, laid the foundations for what is now known as Eurovelo.
The Eurovelo network now consists of 15 long-distance cycling routes, which pass through 42 countries. Once completed, the total kilometers of Eurovelo routes will amount to more than 70,000. Just looking at the map of the routes it is easy to understand how almost all European countries are involved in this project. Eurovelo routes were created in many cases by joining existing national cycling routes (especially in Central and Western Europe). In other cases, was the thrust from the desire to be part of this network to establish national routes that could be integrated.
Numbered from 1 to 17, except for two exceptions, odd numbered routes travel across the continent from north to south; those with even numbers instead from west to east.
In order to get the Eurovelo stamp, the roads must not be sloping over 8% and they must be run by less than 1000 cars per day. Unfortunately, not all trails are complete, or well-marked. Typically, those who travel through nations with good cycling traditions are easy to follow, and they even run along bicycle routes separated by traffic. In southern and eastern Europe, these routes can make experience to the cycling tourist a certain sense of adventure.