On 11 and 12 June, participants of our Preserving the Past, Securing the Future (PPSF) project gathered in Lucca, Italy, for the programme’s third and final capacity building workshop, ‘Economic Sustainability & Strategic Management of Remembrance Tourism Sites’, hosted by project partner Fondazione Campus
Building on the momentum from Normandy and Gdańsk, this gathering brought heritage professionals from across Europe together one last time to explore how memorial sites can strengthen their financial resilience and management practices, ensuring both their long-term viability and their positive impact on the regions that surround them.
The workshop opened on Thursday morning with a welcome from PPSF project partners followed by an ice breaker exercise and introductions among participants. As with previous sessions, the morning continued with a moment of reflection: participants shared how they had applied the learnings from Workshop 2 on Social Responsibility & Community Engagement in Remembrance Tourism within their own organisations.
The core thematic sessions of the day, moderated by Mascontour, focused on Sustainability and the local economy and Planning, managing and monitoring for sustainability. Through interactive exercises and Q&A discussions, participants explored good practices for embedding economic sustainability into the cultural heritage and WWII memory sector, from strengthening ties with local economies to developing robust management plans that monitor impact over time.
In the late afternoon, the group travelled to Lucca’s historic centre for a walking tour of the city’s famous fortified walls, guided by LRE Italy Director Carlo Puddu, before sharing dinner together.
Friday’s programme turned to the question of funding, with Mascontour introducing tips and resources for successful fundraising in the cultural heritage and WWII memory sector. The final thematic session, The value of our work: Beyond Ticket Sales, brought all three workshops together, as participants reflected on how remembrance work contributes to societal resilience, democratic awareness, community wellbeing and local economic development, and how this impact can be communicated to stakeholders and funders.
“This final workshop brought everything full circle,” says Emme Johnson, Project Manager at the LRE Foundation. “Over the course of three workshops, our participants have built not only practical skills in environmental, social and economic sustainability, but also a strong network of peers they can continue to learn from. It has been wonderful to see how much they have grown together over the course of this programme.”
While the Lucca workshop marks the conclusion of the PPSF training programme’s workshop series, the journey doesn’t end here. The project’s findings and outcomes will be shared at a closing conference in Brussels on September 8, bringing together participants, partners, sector stakeholders and members of the public to reflect on the programme’s lessons and discuss the future of sustainable remembrance tourism across Europe. Please make sure to sign up here to ensure entry on the day.
PPSF is a Creative Europe programme co-funded by the European Commission.
