Borsa Mediterranea del Turismo Archeologico

Greetings from the Honorary President Mounir Bouchenaki

The Mediterranean Exchange of Archaeological Tourism has long established itself as an unique international event: home of the only exhibition hall in the world dedicated to archaeological heritage and to ArchaeoVirtual, the first international event dedicated to multimedia, interactive and virtual technologies; a forum for research and debate on cultural heritage and tourism issues; a meeting place for professional business, tourism and cultural operators and travellers; the Workshop between foreign buyers, national buyers and cultural and archaeological tourism stakeholders will provide business opportunities.

There are several special sections of the Exchange: ArchaeoExperience, Laboratories of Experimental Archaeology to reproduce the techniques used in the past to create daily use artifacts; ArchaeoIncoming exhibition space and Workshop where tour operators that promote Italian tourist-archaeological destinations are protagonists; ArchaeoMeetings for press conferences and presentations of cultural and territorial development projects; ArchaeoWorking, post-graduate and post doctoral orientation with the introduction of the educational offer by the Universities participating in the Exhibition Hall; ArchaeoStartUp, where new cultural enterprises and innovative projects in archaeological activities are introduced; Meet the Protagonists where famous TV hosts meet the audience; the “Antonella Fiammenghi” Award for the best thesis on archaeological tourism; the “Paestum Mario Napoli” Award assigned to those who contribute to the valorization of archaeological heritage; the programme of Guided Tours and educationals for journalists and visitors.

Since 2015, the International Archaeological Discovery Award “Khaled al-Asaad” has been added to this list and it is awarded to the most valuable discovery of the year. The award was named after the archaeologist of Palmyra who gave his life for protecting cultural heritage and since 2021 we assign the “Sebastiano Tusa” Award to the archaeological discovery of the year or as a lifelong achievement award, to the best exhibition in an international scientific context, to the most innovative project carried out by Institutions, Archaeological Parks and Museums, or to the best educational journalism contribution.

A successful format, as testified by the collaboration of international organizations such as UNESCO, UNWTO and ICCROM, but also by 10.000 visitors, 100 exhibitors with 20 foreign Countries, 60 conferences and meetings, 300 speakers, 120 offer operators, 100 journalists.