Pro Loco

A nationwide acting in Italy Association initiative called Pro loco (Latin for the site), which has the care of the local traditions of their own community goal. Usually it comes to the promotion of local gastronomy based on typical local products as well as arts and crafts, the organization of theater games and music events based on the individual regional history as well as the orientation of festivals according to local tradition, such as the Sagra or the Palio, of patronage festivals, harvest festivals, nativity scenes and Christmas markets. Pro Loco has revitalized in this way numerous traditions that have been maintained in the past, had fallen into the present into oblivion locally. The first Pro- Loco Group was founded in 1881 in Pieve Tesino.

Organization

There are approximately 6000 individual initiatives, which are combined under the umbrella organization UNPLI ( Unione Nazionale delle Pro Loco d' Italia ). There are Pro Loco everywhere in Italy, but especially in smaller towns and communities that are exposed in the vicinity of the main tourist attractions of the danger of neglect, for example, in the Veneto in the shadow of Venice, in southern Tuscany in the shadow of Florence or in Latium in the shade of the City of Rome.

In contrast to the official Italian organizations for the promotion of tourism, these are a grass roots movement that has come usually on the initiative of the local people about. It is funded by contributions from the members.

Objectives

It is primarily concerned with the appreciation of one's own community. The organization is usually in the respective municipality publishes a brochure in which it advertises for local restaurants, craft shops, shops and other activities which keep in a special way to the traditions of the respective locality. The criticism is sometimes as far as the subjectivity of the selection process.

In order to promote tourism it is only secondarily. However, in general, the achievement of the objectives draws for the local population also has a higher profile in the profile and thus an appreciation of the tourist value of the respective municipality by itself. As a result, the infrastructure, which in turn benefits the economic strength of the respective municipality improved.

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