Four days of promotion for the Castellana Karst site in the Festival squares and participation in the debate with the most important local organizations. Networking is the common goal of "The Charge of the 100.000."
Castellana Caves protagonists of The Possible Book Festival with four days of promotion, from 6 to 9 July, through two information points in the central squares, distribution of thousands of vouchers as an incentive for visiting the karst site and the brand Castellana Caves On all stages, informational materials and T-shirts of the event's organizing staff will be available. Participation in the conference on the topic is of particular importance. “100.000 Dalmatians”, which will be held on the final evening of Saturday 9 July, in Piazza San Benedetto, at 23.15pm and which will see the participation of Domi Ciliberti, president of the company Grotte di Castellana Srl, Rosella Santoro, artistic director of Libro Possibile, Joseph Lovascio, mayor of Conversano, Dominic Vitto, mayor of Polignano di Mare, Giampaolo Loperfido, president of the Putignano Carnival Foundation and Aldo Patruno, director of the culture department of the Puglia Region.
An extraordinary recognition of the work done by the Castellana Caves, in the tourist promotion of the area, to the point of including the Caves in the list of “100.000 Dalmatians”This also represents the recognition of a brilliant intuition: Grotte has always aimed to network by building qualified partnerships with leading companies.
“The charge of 100.000 represents the tourist destinations in the area that have an attractive capacity that exceeds 100.000 visitors – commented the president of the Castellana Caves, Domi Ciliberti – so, in this specific case, we are talking about the Castellana Caves, of the Il Libro Possibile Festival, the Carnival of Putignano, the City of Polignano a Mare, and the City of Conversano, with which we have established a close collaboration for the exhibition of the renowned painter De Chirico, which will be open from July 10th to October 30th at the Museum located in the Castle of Largo della Corte in Conversano. For the occasion, we have created a single ticket that will allow visitors to the Caves and those attending the exhibition to enjoy a discounted rate.
How many visitors do the Castellana Caves boast?
To be precise, rather than visitors, we should be talking about attendance. Let me explain. Last year, we welcomed more than 275.000 visitors to the Caves, plus all those who passed through the Caves area thanks to events like Grotteland, Hell in the Cave, the Sirio Observatory, Speleonight, Christmas in the Caves, Cave Nativity Scenes, the Film Festival, and Episodes of the Possible Book. We can therefore say that in total, in 2015, we recorded more than 360.000 visitors.
What is the strong point?
There isn't just one strength. There are many factors that allow us to grow. One of these came about three years ago when we created and consolidated a partnership that proved to be functional and excellent: the one with Il Libro Possibile. We strongly believed in the combination of culture and tourism – stresses Ciliberti – creating Episodes and imagining the Castellana Caves as a unique stage in the world for hosting national and international cultural events. This demonstrates that when foresight and the desire to create a system and network within the area prevail over mere local concerns, results are quick to arrive.
Satisfied with this achievement?
“We are proud, as people of Castellana, to be considered worthy of attention for merits achieved in the tourism sector within a prestigious event such as that of Libro Possibile”.
Future goals?
“Making tourism and hospitality the driving force of our economy. Our wish he concluded Ciliberti is that our vision becomes more and more a happy contamination".
