The Origins of Lbt

The idea of Life Beyond Tourism was conceived by a Foundation set in Florence, which is called Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation (www.fondazione-delbianco.org).

In a world in which technology reduces distances but numbs the warmth out of human relationships, the Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation in Florence continues to devote its energies to fostering opportunities for meeting and dialogue between different countries and different cultures, thus contributing to the rebirth of a new kind of travel through tourism.
Thanks to its network of cooperation with over 300 universities in 50 countries, the Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation has managed over the past 10 years to develop a formula for “authentic tourism” by fostering interaction among participants; and by allowing young people and their teachers and academic staff to have a stimulating and educational encounter with their destination, enhancing that destination’s identity and specific social and cultural features.
The international encounters without competition, respecting individual identities to “discover the past together, and to work to build a shared future”, are a crucial moment for opening out, for familiarizing and dialoguing with others; they mean experiencing universal values such as tolerance and respect at first hand; and after all, these are crucial moral keystones in the construction of a better society.
It is this heritage of intangible values on which the Foundation’s very existence rests, and the experience built up over the years in fostering opportunities for people from different cultural backgrounds to meet, that have spawned the Life Beyond Tourism project: a new way of experiencing tourism, sponsored and coordinated by the Romualdo Del Bianco Foundation.