UNWTO Selects Best Worldwide Projects for Ulysses Award. Village 4 All is Finalist in Two Categories

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The UNWTO Awards for Excellence and Innovation in Tourism honours tourism initiatives that contribute to advance tourism through knowledge and innovation, in line with the principles of the UNWTO Global Code of Ethics for Tourism and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Village for All logoFerrara ,7th January 2014. (Village for All).

The United Nations World Tourism Organization has selected the best worldwide projects in the Ulysses Award competition.

Village for All - V4A® is finalist in two categories: Tourist Innovation and Technological Innovation.

On 11 December, just before Christmas Holidays, the commiunication arrived at the V4A®’s headquarters saying that V4A has been selected as finalist for UNWTO Ulysses Award 2013 in two categories:

  1. UNWTO Ulysses Award for Innovation in Enterprises - International Quality Brand for Hospitality for All, Village for All SRL (Italy)
  2. UNWTO Ulysses Award for Innovation in Research and Technology - V4A Inside, Village for All SRL (Italy)

Every year since 2003, the UNWTO Awards for Excellence and Innovation in Tourism have honoured tourism initiatives that contribute to advance tourism through knowledge and innovation, in line with the principles of the UNWTO Global Code of Ethics for Tourism and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Roberto Vitali, President of V4A®, commented: “Without doubt, we identify closely with the founding values of this award. V4A® has placed Ethics, Innovation and Knowledge at the basis of their work. In 2008, when we first started the V4A® adventure, we knew that we were being Pioneers. However, we have achieved this level of “Global” success thanks to the many other people all over the world who have shared this adventure with us, through the networks that we belong to. Right from the outset, we envisaged a project that could ensure that anyone, regardless of their conditions, could have a holiday in any country, and we did this by promoting the culture of Inclusion and Responsibility, without forgetting that this essential human right is also an exceptional opportunity for businesses. We have developed a V4Ainside Software, which took us more than 3 years of research and development, precisely so that we could make it systematic and economically viable to work in Accessible Tourism. Now, we can offer our services to any country, guaranteeing a quality level that would have been inconceivable in the past".

The finalist’s award is scheduled to take place on Jan. 22 in Madrid at the UNWTO, Gala Dinner and the Knowledge Network Symposium. In those days in Madrid (from 22 to 26) will take place FITUR - Feria Internacional de Turismo -, where V4A® will be present with its own stand.

Village for all – V4A® is the International Quality Brand Hospitality for all  that through information disclosed, guarantees to people with disabilities, of mobility or sensory, food or environmental allergies, ederly, dialysis, obese, for families with small children, to be able to make informed choices and informed, where spend their holidays. “ Everybody holidays”, this is the idea that led to the creation of the project Village for all – V4A®, that work with one goal: to promote the Accessible Hospitality, the social inclusion and the right to holiday for everyone.

Accessible Hospitality means the set of services and facilities able to allow to people with specific needs the enjoyment of holiday and freetime without obstacles and difficulties. We consider as “specific needs” not only those of people in wheelchairs but more generally of those who have reduced mobility permanent or temporary, sensory limitations (blind or deaf), food allergies or intolerances, diabetic people, dialiysis and obese people but also needs of that great band of the population that consists of elderly and families with children.

Village for all – V4A® certifies under its own Brand tourist structures able to offer Accessible Hospitality for all. It guarantees detailed information, reliable, precise, personally checking each structure before affiliation, ensuring information on measures, dimensions and clearances, without delivering "licensed accessibility” but giving people the chance to choose independently their holiday in the structure that will best meet the needs of the individual and his or her family.

Roberto Vitali is from Ferrara, small city near Bologna. He is 53 years old, he has a wife and a daughter. He is registered with the publicists journalist of the region Emilia Romagna. A moto accident in January 1976, when he was 15, made him paraplegic. Since that moment, Roberto Vitali undertook a long series of activities and projects. Passionate about sports, was Italian champion in Olympic kayaking and in slalom in the early 90s. Since 90s he promotes initiatives about accessible tourism. In Ferrara has created the first office "Informa Handicap". He is technical referent for the FISH (Italian Federation for Overcoming Handicaps) for the Tourism sector. Emeritus president and founder of SiPuò (National Laboratory on Accessibile Tourism), of which he was president until 2008. He is currently President and founder of Village for all – V4A® (www.V4A.it ). He is a member and spokesman of Commission for the Promotion of Accessible Tourism to Ministry of Tourism since may 2012. He is co-inventor of the system V4AInside .


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