Italy is renowned worldwide for its rich culture, historical sites, and mouthwatering cuisine. But beyond the well-known cities like Rome, Florence, and Venice, there exists a less explored but equally enchanting side of Italy. This is the focus of our current Growing Destinations podcast episode, where we delve into the lesser-known cultural regions of Italy with Anna Bonavita and Tom Gabriel, co-founders of the Minnesota non-profit organization, Esperienza.
Esperienza
Experience Rochester, MN
Italy is renowned worldwide for its rich culture, historical sites, and mouthwatering cuisine. But beyond the well-known cities like Rome, Florence, and Venice, there exists a less explored but equally enchanting side of Italy. This is the focus of our current Growing Destinations podcast episode, where we delve into the lesser-known cultural regions of Italy with Anna Bonavita and Tom Gabriel, co-founders of the Minnesota non-profit organization, Esperienza.
Esperienza
Experience Rochester, MN
The Growing Destinations podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. Learn more about Minnesota's third largest city, which is home to Mayo Clinic and features wonderful recreational and entertainment opportunities, by visiting experiencerochestermncom.
Speaker 2:In the center of Venice, there are no locals, there are only tourists, and this is repeating in every big cities in Italy. Our goal, from the very beginning, was to be the alternative of the phenomenon of mass tourism, of overtourism. Experience is designed to be this alternative.
Speaker 3:Last summer I attended our language immersion program and we stayed in this small hilltop town called Verrocchio Population under a thousand, feels like under a hundred and we students would eat at the local cafe in the middle of the piazza and we got to know the family that ran this small cafe and this year my wife and I went back to visit them. It was like visiting family.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Growing Destinations podcast, where we take a deep dive into destination development and focus on a wide range of topics, from tourism and entertainment to economic development and entrepreneurism, and much more. I'm your host, bill von Bank. While most people are acquainted with Italy's famous cities and popular regions, there exists another facet of Italy that some may not be as familiar with. It's an Italy comprised of small towns and villages and Tourist Spirianza, a non-profit organization headquartered in Minnesota, co-founded by Anna Bonavita and Tom Gabriel. Their primary mission is to honor and safeguard Italian culture by offering genuine and immersive travel experiences. What sets them apart is their commitment to shedding light on lesser known regions, far from the bustling tourist hotspots. These places have, over time, witnessed declining populations. Spirianza, however, isn't solely devoted to providing unique travel experiences. They're also dedicated to infusing economic vitality and rejuvenation into these very regions. Anna Bonavita and Tom Gabriel, welcome to the Growing Destinations podcast.
Speaker 3:Thanks, bill. It's great to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Really excited for our conversation today about your non-profit organization connected to the rich cultural experiences of Italy. Before our Italy immersion, tell us a bit about yourselves, anna.
Speaker 2:In my previous life I was a scientist. I taught at universities, I worked for big companies and now I'm sharing what I love with people who have open minds and available to explore it with me.
Speaker 3:Tom. I'm originally from the East Coast and went to Midwest for college. I was a psychology major and an English minor and after getting my degree I was on my way to law school when I took a year off and ended up in advertising instead of being a lawyer and I never looked back From there I was recruited to join the Honolulu branch of a big international ad agency. Pretty great gig. We our biggest client was the state of Hawaii, the tourism, and so we did all that marketing and worked with the hospitality industry there and, of course, selling Hawaii is a pretty easy job. We had a lot of fun with that. Ten years later, I came directly to Minneapolis from Honolulu for the weather obviously and joined Carmichael Lynch, an agency in Minneapolis, as a creative director.
Speaker 3:Five years later, I launched a new company that became had a bunch of names, but it became Gabriel, degruid, bent, gdb. 20 years later, we sold the agency. I left the ad business and joined Anna in what is now known as Esperienza Italia.
Speaker 1:Great lead in Anna. Can you share the inspiration behind starting Esperienza and how did your background as a scientist play a role in this transition to culture and community focused projects?
Speaker 2:There is not a single event that led to Esperienza, although there was a point in time when the wife of one of Italy's most famous poets asked me to help her little village bring new energy to it. However, there was truly a series of confluence of events that led to that point. As long as I remember myself, I have been fascinated with Italy. Then I married an Italian and I could not just visit Italy, I could really explore it, studied it in depth, asked questions, go and test various theories. Even so, I studied Italy, some parts of Italy, truly as a scientific object. I wanted to understand it. Gradually my taste changed. Initially I was very interested in big cities Rome, florence, venice, museums, famous architectural sites and then I started finding much more rewarding human, direct human connections in smaller places, and I longed for them. So this is how, eventually, when the wife of this famous poet, laura Guerra, asked me to help, I came up with a simple idea bring people to the village from America.
Speaker 1:Tom, how did you initially meet Anna and what was the motivation to become business partners with Esperienza?
Speaker 3:Right when I was getting ready to leave the ad business, I received an email I think it was a mass email from the founder of the local Italian cultural center who was.
Speaker 3:Anna at the time and I was studying Italian at night, and Anna was asking for any volunteers interested in helping her launch this new venture. And since I was suddenly about to have a lot of free time on my hands, I replied. And when Anna saw my marketing title, I think she got excited and asked me to have a coffee. And at that meeting she told me about this idyllic, magical, really kind of unbelievable part of Italy and her intentions to create a more authentic and immersive travel experience. And, as you can already tell from listening to Anna, she's very persuasive and I was also very excited about the idea of continuing my own education about Italy and the culture and the language. So off we went.
Speaker 1:What year did this partnership start?
Speaker 2:It was December 2017 and I often joke that Tom left his job in advertising to join me in. Esperienza.
Speaker 1:Not a bad gig. Tom alluded to this, but you're not just involved with Esperienza, but also have a background in founding and leading the Italian Cultural Center and the Italian Film Festival of Minneapolis, St Paul. How do these initiatives contribute to your mission of promoting Italian culture, and how did they connect with Esperienza's work?
Speaker 2:Both the Italian Cultural Center and the Italian Film Festival was created as a way of presenting, bringing actually modern Italy to Minnesota. There was no other center at that time. From the very beginning the idea was to not just share Italian culture with Minnesotans but to create an island of humanity and warmth, especially during the winter, because so many people here live alone and long for connection. And then, with Esperienza, it was like a natural extension of the same idea of human connection and bringing warmth, more humanity to modern Americans, because with Esperienza we take you to a place where you can experience it directly.
Speaker 1:Tom is co-founder of Experianzo. What has been your role in shaping the organization's mission and vision, and how does your advertising background come into play in promoting the organization's objectives and creating awareness?
Speaker 3:After Anna kind of shared her vision and her values with me, I had the opportunity to first of all name the organization. Good job.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you, Although a lot of people mispronounce it, but that's okay and I also had the opportunity to create much of the initial positioning and the personality of the brand how we go to market and we needed all the basics. So we created a website. I had help with that. We did some initial advertising and public relations and these days I continue to look for new and different ways to reach our target, to tell our story and basically to gain more awareness. But these days I have a lot more help with that. We now have a paid assistant who has a background in marketing and she also helps with the operational side, so it's getting a little easier.
Speaker 2:Yet still, it's a work of love for both of us.
Speaker 1:Anna, the mission of Experianzo is clearly rooted in a deep commitment to preserving Italian culture. Going beyond mere words. Can you elaborate on how your organization's work has made a tangible difference in the small towns and villages of Italy, particularly in the Emilia-Romagna region?
Speaker 2:We first arrived in 2018, and I remember how the whole village of Benabili I mean we started small, we went to this village population 2700. And how everyone came to the streets to welcome us. How people were stopped on the streets and invited to visit to share a cup of coffee. We were invited to the house of the vice mayor. Everyone was talking about us. We brought new life, new energy to the place. We stayed there for a while. We were not just going from one big city to another city. We stayed in the same village for three weeks and we made friendships, but we also contributed to all local businesses that we visited during this place, and this was just in 2018, during our first trip. Then we continued along the same line. We added new villages where we contribute directly through our business relationships, but we also share whatever small profit we make. We share it with various organizations that we consider important to the local culture.
Speaker 1:Why did you pick this region specifically?
Speaker 2:This is the region that I know best, because my husband was born there Emilia. Romania is a big region and Emilia is very different from Romania. Experience is totally dedicated to Romania.
Speaker 3:Most recently last year in May, the big flooding that took place in Italy. We were able to contribute not only with dollars, with raising funds here in the United States. When we traveled there in the spring we had our guests actually pitch in and help some of the local people with that terrible tragedy. So another way that we were helping.
Speaker 1:What are some unique aspects of the Emilia-Romania region that make it a prime destination for your programs?
Speaker 2:Emilia-Romania is famous for many different reasons, but I will start with food. No other region of Italy is as good as Emilia Romagna when it comes to food. It has a very important, impressive portfolio in this regard. Then come the amazing history, the rich cultural and art scene and, last but definitely not least, the people of Romagna, the most generous, kind and passionate I know. There is really no other place I know in Italy where friendship, solidarity, conviviality can be experienced directly. The same way, the good food, the good wine and the good company can be.
Speaker 3:I had been to many parts of Italy before I met Anna and experienced this, and it's just amazing how undervalued under the radar this region is. Anna talked about it, but it is. You know, tuscany has some beautiful places, but Emilia Romagna can match them easily.
Speaker 1:You're selling it really well. The issue of overtourism and its negative impacts on popular destinations is a well-documented concern. Can you elaborate on the hidden costs of overtourism and how it has affected places like Venice, Rome and Florence? Is the work you both are doing with Esperian's solution?
Speaker 2:I'm one of the founders of the Italian Film Festival. During one of the Italian Film Festival presentations, I had the opportunity here in Minnesota to share with local viewers a film called the Venice Syndrome. This is how we all became aware of what is happening to Venice, how the rise of China, middle class low-cost airlines and AirPMB has contributed to the emptying of Venice. So in the center of Venice there are no locals, there are only tourists, and this is repeating in every big cities in Italy.
Speaker 2:Our goal from the very beginning was to be the alternative of the phenomenon of mass tourism, of overtourism. Esperian's is designed to be this alternative. We imagine us taking a small, very small percentage of the mass tourism that is going toward the five big cities, because every year 6 million Americans visit Italy and they all go to five big cities. So imagine taking a small percentage of these 6 millions and taking them on the road less traveled, allowing them to have intimate, direct experience with Italian people, with Italian people. So that was our goal from the very beginning and we hope we're making a difference.
Speaker 1:And Tom, not only making a difference with sharing culture, but providing economic impact to those communities.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely, and we're really trying to come and go and buy a few souvenirs. We're really creating ongoing sustainable relationships.
Speaker 1:Given the challenges posted by changing times in population, what is Esperian's long-term vision for making a sustainable and lasting impact on these small towns and villages in Italy?
Speaker 2:You're talking about big problem and we are part of the solution. We are part of this movement of bringing new energy to small places, because this is where humanity resides, this is where we are at our best as humans. Truly, we're using tourism as a vehicle to bring this new energy, but we hope that there will be more besides this, because the day will come when young people will stay in these villages, children will be born and life will continue.
Speaker 1:You started this organization the end of 2017 and, as you fast forward, we had a major pandemic impact our lives. How did that impact your organization, tom?
Speaker 3:Well, it was certainly a challenge. Just surviving was a challenge, but, as in many of these cases, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because we got very busy and we created something we called Espirienza Virtuale, which obviously meant online, and we created cultural programs connecting people here in the United States with our friends in Italy, and we had one program called Secrets of Life Well-Lived, which still is living and mostly free events where people could connect and share stories with our friends in Italy, and, at the end of the day, we grew our membership online and we had more people who joined us on our website, and so when we were able to conduct trips again, we had a built-in audience that was interested.
Speaker 1:You can help people still who may not be able to travel for whatever reason. Your website still is a great resource for them.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. We have these virtual programs and many pretty much every month, mostly free, and it's a great way to just get a flavor for what Espirienza is about, and also anybody who has any interest in Italy should sign up for our ongoing newsletters.
Speaker 2:Every December, the third Saturday of December, we visit a village in Italy and we look at the Presepezea and we hear stories about it. So it's a wonderful way to be in Italy at Christmas time and experience it with the local people.
Speaker 1:As a non-profit organization, you invest most of your profits back into cultural projects in the rural communities in Italy. Can you provide some specific examples of these projects and their positive outcomes for the communities involved?
Speaker 2:We are very proud to support organizations such as Archeologia Arborreia. This is a foundation that is dedicated to preserving so-called forgotten fruits. Once every village has their own apples, pears, figs, and this foundation has collected various fruits from various villages and keeps them alive in a special fruit orchard. So in a way, this is memory of this village. We support this organization, but we also support the salt mines, which is right on the sea and still hand produce the famous sweet salt of Cervia, which can be found in some good restaurants. We also have a collaboration with the local park. It's a national park of Sasso Simone and Simone Cello and we plant trees. For every visitor from America we plant a tree to offset to some degree our carbon footprint.
Speaker 1:Tom, could you tell our listeners more about your team, including teachers, guides and local partners who help you fulfill this Birienza's mission?
Speaker 3:We have an incredible network of people in Italy in these local regions, and everything from tour guides to people who friends of Anna from the past, who will tell her hey, you should think about this restaurant or this orchard or whatever. And we also, along the way in the last five years, have made so many really close friends who are able to help us when we actually get there.
Speaker 2:We have a very large team of collaborators in Italy, and how can I forget Vitaliana? This is an amazing artist in Ravenna, who have been the source of so many ideas of how to create truly unforgettable, special, intimate experiences when we visited Ravenna? How can we forget Luigi, the 40-year-old doctor of Pena Bili, who is also a poet, who, whenever we meet him, recites poetry to us? We also have an incredible teacher, emanuele Corbetta, who has a background in theatre, she is director and an actress and she makes sure that her lessons, like no one else, they are very playful, yes, emotionally engaging, and people Learn Italian.
Speaker 3:We have a language immersion, we have a culinary tour, an art program and some new things coming. Those are our primary programs.
Speaker 1:It's evident that you both have a deep love for Italy. Can you share a memorable experience or encounter that solidified your passion for the Italian culture?
Speaker 3:One was my honeymoon where, my first time in Italy my wife and I got off the plane we were very, very hungry, got a rental car and on the highway we thought we got to eat something. We pulled in at basically a gas station on the out of strata the highway. I ordered a bowl of pasta at this cafeteria. It was the best pasta of my life. I thought something's different here in Italy. My other example is just more recent. Last summer I attended our language immersion program and we stayed in this small hilltop town called Verrucchio. Population under 1,000 feels like under 100. We students would eat at the local cafe in the middle of the piazza and we got to know the family that ran this small cafe. This year my wife and I went back to visit them. It was like visiting family the warmth, the welcome that we received. We are now hoping to host their college-aged daughter here in America next year.
Speaker 1:Fantastic Anna. Any memories?
Speaker 2:I have too many to share, but I would like to mention something that one of our very recent visitors I mean both me and Tom. We are coming from Italy. We were just there. I completed, together with a few others, the Camino of San Francesco, the way of San Francesco of Assisi, which was five days of walking through mountains and stopping in small mountain villages on the way to La Verna, the place where San Francesco received the stigmata. There were many amazing moments there, yet I was tremendously content when one of our pilgrims said I have been so many times to Italy, yet I have never experienced it in such an intimate way. This is our goal to offer our visitors a way to experience Italy as they have never had before.
Speaker 1:For those interested in experiencing esperienza and getting involved. Where can they find more information and get in touch with your organization?
Speaker 3:Well, we have a website, wwwesperienzaorg, and it's a great place to not only learn more, but please, if you go there, do sign up, because we will keep you in touch and you'll find out about a lot of free activities in which you can participate. You can also email us at info at esperienzaorg for more. We do have a phone number as well, that's 612-232-6951.
Speaker 1:Ana Bonavita and Tom Gabriel. This has been a fascinating conversation. Love your passion for Italy. It's been great to learn more about the important work you do and save me a spot on your next trip. Thank you for being our guests on the Growing Destinations podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Bill, thank you for tuning in to the Growing Destinations podcast and don't forget to subscribe. This podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. Find out more about Rochester, minnesota, and its growing arts and culture scene, its international culinary flavors and award-winning craft beer by visiting ExperienceRochesterMNcom.