Augusto Salvatori, speaking for the Municipality of Venice at the 8th International Workshop of Tourism in the Veneto Region on July 2nd, said, in reference to his position, “It is a huge responsibility to represent this center of culture.” In his speech he asked for the citizens of Venice to help him.
“We need to work on the culture of hospitality, to get the people, especially the children, to be open to the visitors. We need guests to feel at home in Venice.”
“Our schools should teach the history of Venice. We boast the Lion of St. Mark, but we need to understand the meaning of the lion. Our Gondoliers need to know the history of Venice.”
His was an appeal to Venetians to be more tolerant of tourists and respect their city. “Clean cities are what tourists want. We want Venice to be known as a clean, safe city.” We ask our citizens to “cooperate with the police to remove illegal immigrants.”
The focus of Salvatori’s speech was his appeal to the citizens to create a warm friendly environment in Venice where tourists will be comfortable. Attendees of the meeting generally agreed his campaign was successful in so far as the friendliness of the people they met, but that there was still some work to be done on the cleanliness issue.
