who we are
About Overtourism Solution
We are a team of passionate multidisciplinary professionals who have experienced first-hand the negative impact of tourism in the poster child city of over-tourism: Venice. Proactive innovators and advocates, we have leveraged social innovation, digitalisation and communication to develop a new model of local tourism which makes tourism beneficial for people, places and the planet and is recognized by leaders in industry and government around the world. As our goal is for such models to be the norm in tourism, we are working to share our learning, and methodology and to help remove the barriers that prevent wellbeing focused models to emerge and thrive.
INFORMED FROM LIVED EXPERIENCE
Sharing knowledge and insights
Facilitating collaborative action/removing barriers for others
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A unique profile
This is how we differ
We live in Venice and know first-hand what overtourism means for the local people, environment, heritage and economy. By seeking to make tourism more beneficial in our community, we have developed and proven a new tourism paradigm that has well-being at its core, empowers both residents and visitors and leverages digitalisation, communication and social innovation. Our methodology, our learning are all here for you to grab so you too can help make tourism a win-win-win.
As frontrunners, we have also met and identified barriers that prevent models such as ours from becoming the industry standard. As our end goal is to mainstream the use of such practices and mindsets – as a way to unlock the potential of tourism to support the 17 SDGs and support inclusive and regenerative economies and societies -we work to render ourselves useless in the future.
Our ideal world is one where tourism serves communities and the planet and where people like us are no longer needed. Consequently, we design everything we do with the intent to empower others. Far from us the thought to keep anyone stuck in a condition of dependence, we want everyone to have the capacity and tools to leverage tourism for the good of people, places and the planet.
We know no boundaries
We are part of the social sector, the Sustainable Development Goal movement, the circular economy, the travel and tourism industry and the digital revolution. We work at the community level and the global ones as innovators, practitioners, facilitators, educators, weavers and advocates. Through our work and relations we bridge levels, sectors, scales and geographies.
Empathetic and Innovative
To address the issues that mass tourism poses in the community where we live, we’ve developed a new tourism model. As a result, we approach residents and anyone who want to change things from a place of empathy and shared lived experience.
FUTURE READY AND open TO SHARING IT ALL
We are fluent with mindsets, approaches and skills that we believe should be at the core of everything we do in tourism (social innovation, systems thinking, collective action, digitalisation, new media, ethical marketing…) and always ready to openly share
FOCUSED ON REAL RESULTS AND PEOPLE
We believe work should be fun and eschew lengthy speeches in favour of interactive, concrete approaches that prioritize human involvement, tangible results, and are always rooted in careful listening.
Holitic, Community Driven, and Wellbeing Focused. This is how we believe tourism should look
Sustainable & Regenerative
Tourism must help preserve and regenerate our communities, cultures, economies, places and environment.
Inclusive & Equitable
Everyone must benefit in an equitable way from the sector and no one should be exploited and left behind.
Resilient & Competitive
Tourism must be able to rapidly adapt to shocks, and disruptions and remain attractive in changing contexts.
Born from our experience in Venice
Learn more about our roots
Our commitment to transforming the tourism industry into a driver of sustainable development started in 2015, when our co-founders Valeria Duflot and Sebastian Fagarazzi identified a need for a tourism that truly benefits visitors and residents.
While living in Venice, Italy, the city that might be the poster child of the negative impact of tourism, Valeria Duflot, and Sebastian Fagarazzi were observing how the city was emptying itself of residents and how tourism was damaging the local way of life, culture and more.
In early 2015, while they were increasingly aware of the displacement and damages created by mass tourism, they realized that if it would be easier for visitors to support the local population in Venice directly, then it would make a world of difference. This is what they set out to do with Venezia Autentica, a social enterprise that empowers visitors to have a better experience and helps local businesses benefit more from tourism while contributing to the preservation or regeneration of cultural and natural assets.
The impact of our local model in Venice
We’re social innovators and advocates passionate about making tourism more beneficial to the community and visitors of Venice and beyond.
By leveraging social innovation, digitalisation, and communication, we have created a new model of tourism in Venice.
Our work and recommendations have been featured on media such as CNN, BBC, Forbes and we’ve been highlighted as “frontrunners” by the industry and honoured for “changing society through (digital) social innovation”.
At the community level in Venice, our activities have redirected millions of tourists’ euros towards a more circular and responsible economy that supports the local community and heritage. On the other hand, our messages to transform the way people see and impact their destination and nudge the industry towards more sustainable practices have reached over 100 million people in 2020 alone.
The online and offline narrative, language and products around Venice have been increasingly shifting towards the ones we have been developing and promoting since 2015. As industry frontrunners, powerful media voices and global advocates, we pride ourselves on the role we’ve been playing in these mindsets and markets shifts.
Venice is one of the highest-profile destinations in the World. The crises it is facing today – displacement of the population, the threat to its cultural and natural heritage, destruction of its economy, and climate emergency – are the consequences of mass tourism. These crises are the future of other destinations if we do not change the way we do tourism.
As our end goal is for models like that of Venezia Autentica to be the norm in the tourism industry, our work does not stop at Venice boundaries. This is why -through Overtourism Solution -we work at the global level to accelerate the transformation of the sector at the root. To do so, we regularly share our approach, methodologies, mindset and learning with leading government and industry representatives as well as students and entrepreneurs from everywhere around the world, advocate for widespread structural changes and work to facilitate collective action.
Contact
Contact us to get started
We love to share our knowledge, advice and experience and are very flexible in our approach. We are biased towards interactive and collaborative approaches and typically like to tailor-make everything we do to fit our partner's and clients' needs and that of their audience. Let's chat!
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Email: team@overtourismsolution.com
Text Anytime (WhatsApp/Telegram): (+39)-3463040336