Bevagna and its visiting cards

The Municipality of Bevagna in the last decade has activated local development paths aimed at the recovery and enhancement of local identities, such as the attention to the environment, to the street furniture, the promotion of cultural heritage and food and wine productions. In this context the Municipality of Bevagna is a member of “Strada del Vino” and “Strada del Sagrantino” and has joined 7 territorial certifications / brands. In particular, the Municipality is “Orange Flag”, “Most Beautiful Village in Italy”, “City of Wine”, “City of Oil”, “City of Tastes”, “City of Bio” and “City of Honey”. The numerous certifications conferred to Bevagna testify how the city pays attention to the quality, beauty and enhancement of its “genius loci”. In 2013, Bevagna was declared, with only twenty other Italian municipalities, “Jewel Town of Italy”, participating in the project “Jewels of Italy”, the result of institutional collaboration between the Department for Regional Affairs, tourism and sport and ANCI.

The objective of the project is to enhance the touristic offerings of the small municipalities in a unified way and to promote the characteristics and cultural traditions of the territories in an ideal route through Italy. In 2009, Doxa, Mercury and Authentic Villages of Italy carried out a search aimed at current and potential visitors to characteristic villages, to understand the motivations that drive tourists to visit Italian villages. From this research the following motivations emerge: the discovery of new or little-known places, the tranquility and serenity of the places, the knowledge of gastronomic traditions and the tasting of typical regional products and the conviviality of the residents.

The study underlines how the Italian village must possess relational and emotional qualities inherent in the communities that inhabit the villages and their own slow rhythms and life times. Next to certain physical characteristics (little-known place, dimension linked to the past, an element of attraction immersed in a typical natural area), the Municipality of Bevagna is well identified in this profile, both as regards the physical characteristics and the quality of the social capital and can be considered as a competitive destination for that sector of experiential tourism which seeks an exclusive and unique experience (P. De Salvo in the Great Dictionary of Bevagna, 1). In 2017 Paesi On Line awarded the town of Bevagna the certificate as the best destination for the art and culture category, having ranked among the top rated locations