DEVELOPING MUSEUM FACILITIES. INTEGRATED RESEARCH/ACTION PROJECT
FOR CULTURAL TOURISM IN MULTICULTURAL AREAS

Contractor : Istituto per l'Europa Centro-Orientale e Balcanica

Type of project: education

Subject: cultural tourism

Partner institutionsinvolved:

• Universityof Bologna, Italy
• Universityof Plovdiv Paisi Hilendarski,Bulgaria,
• Institute of Folkloreof the Bulgarian Academyof Science,
• New BulgarianUniversity, Bulgaria
• Institute of Ancient Plovdiv,Bulgaria
• Ethnographic Museum of Plovdiv,Bulgaria

Period: 1 January 2024 -30 June 2006

Donor: Italian Ministryof Foreign Affairs, Law 212/92

Objective of the project: the project concerns topics relevant to the political transition aswell as to the need of reinventing new forms of social coexistence among Bulgariancommunities, identities, and histories. A first phase of collaborationbetween the cultural anthropology team of the Universityof Bologna, the Istitutoper l'Europa Centro Orientale e Balcanica,and other cultural and university institutions underlined some culturalaspects of the process of social and political transformation in Bulgaria.These aspects are now the object of the current project on cultural tourism.Cultural and sustainable tourism supports economic cooperation, internationalrelations, the promotion of training activities and of interculturalexchanges, and makes also an impact on the public local administrations. Inthis context the present project aims to achieve a double objective: thetraining of cultural operators who will eventually become trainers themselvesand the arrangement of the instruments necessary for the subsequentrealisation of a Multi-cultural Museum of Bulgaria and the Balkans (Museo Multiculturale della Bulgaria e dei Balcani – MuBa). The projectintends therefore to organise a School of Tourism,whose contents will be discussed and defined by the Italian and Bulgarianteams during a first meeting that will be held in Italy.A second meeting will be held in Bulgariaat the end of the School, in order to finalise the realisation plan for the MuBa.

The project consists of three parts:

1. Planning contents and didactic structure of thetraining phase;

2. Provision of the Schoolof Tourism;

3. Results presentation and proposals for the MuBa.

Activities:

TourismSchool

This will be acycle of lectures for cultural tourism operators, which is intended to be theprototype of a course for a School of Expertsin Development, Planning and Management of Cultural Tourism in Bulgaria.The course will be divided into a series of differentiated activities, whichwill constitute intensive training. Additionally planned is also the creationof an individual project of a theoretical-applicative nature, which shouldtake the form of structured activity aimed at specific areas, identifiedduring the training course, and tailored to the specific professional profilechosen by the student.

Atelier

Thisinitiative intends to offer "a workshop", one of the spaces of themulticultural museum project –theAtelier-, as a prototypical experience, thus providing, on the one hand,the opportunity to reflect on issues of intercultural education and on theirrelations to tradition and contemporary culture through the collaboration ofmuseums and schools, while, on the other hand, specifically involving theeducational sector as a whole, including both school institutions andexternal education agencies.

Laboratory

This initiativeis meant to offer one of the spaces of the multicultural museum project –theLaboratory- as a prototype, to stimulate reflection on the transformationof "cultural products" in the broad meaning of the term, spanning fromtradition to contemporary culture. The laboratory activity will consist inanalysing and promoting intercultural products, that is to say products ofthe different cultures of the Balkan and Bulgarian histories and heritages.

Through thelaboratory the project intends to make the museum an object of thecontemporary world, where traditions and cultures are translated into "texts"of the present. Folkloristic traditions, handcrafted objects, and ethnicmusic offer examples of how the contemporary world revisits traditions whilecreating something new and specific to the modern world.

Results presentation andproposals for the MuBa

All the abovedescribed activities will be concluded by the final meeting in Plovdiv.Both the scientific and the management project participants will take part inthe meeting together with the Italian and Bulgarian scientific committees,who will present the proposal for the realization of the Museum. The end ofthe pilot experience proposed by this project will represent the second stageof collaboration between the team of the Universityof Bologna and that of the Bulgarianuniversities and cultural institutions (New BulgarianUniversity, Universityof Plovdiv, etc.). The first stepof collaboration took place in 2000 through International Seminars of study,whose objective was the initiation of the three pilot activities: TrainingCourse, Workshop (Atelier) and Laboratory.

The third step ofcollaboration will consist in the realisation of both a permanent 'School forExperts in Cultural Tourism and Museum Facilities' and the MuBa.

Resultsof the project: The three prototype training activities foreseen bythis project constitute the three components of the Schoolof Tourism. These activities willprovide the MuBa with important data, materials,ideas, and experiences. Besides, the project will train tourism operators andexperts that work in the Bulgarian context. The project activities aim toreinforce the cultural, social and economic collaboration with Bulgaria.This factor, together with the involved human resources development in thefield of cultural tourism, gives an adequate guarantee of the sustainabilityof the initiative.

Starting form theoutcome of the research team's experiences in the three components of theproject, it will be possible to move in the two parallel directions todevelop the long-term project involving the creation of the MuBa and the setting up of a School of Tourism forcultural operators specialising in the development, planning and managementof tourist facilities in Bulgaria.

Projectweb site
http://www.nbu.bg/departments/

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