Tourism Communication Across Time and Space
Languages, Cultural Mediations, and Historical Developments
May 18-19, 2026 - Treviso
Conference
The PRIN 2020 project DIETALY (Destination Italy in Tourism Translation Over the Years) has investigated how Italy has been represented, translated, and circulated as a destination for international tourists across languages and media over the past century. Focusing in particular on the period from the 1920s to the 1950s, the project has examined the role of language and translation in shaping Italy’s international image during years marked by Fascism, economic crisis, and post-war reconstruction. The analysis has drawn on brochures, booklets, magazines, and related materials produced for English-speaking audiences, placing institutional communication and multilingual mediation at the centre of historical inquiry.
A key outcome of the project is the DIETALY database, a digital resource that systematises the metadata of a dispersed body of materials. By indexing more than 600 brochures, magazines, and promotional texts, the database offers searchable and cross-referenced metadata that support customised research across bibliographic descriptions, tourism-specific categories, languages, and genres, enabling users to trace discursive patterns and reconstruct how Italy was presented to foreign publics. Beyond documenting Italy’s tourism promotion, the database also carries comparative potential: it opens avenues for cross-national studies and invites dialogue with similar collections relating to other countries, particularly within Europe, where parallel historical developments shaped the international promotion of national identities.
Tourism studies have gained renewed significance in recent years, not only because tourism remains a crucial economic and cultural sector but also because it offers a productive lens through which to examine processes of identity-making, cultural translation, mediation, and heritage communication. Understanding these dynamics requires perspectives that bring together linguistic, historical, and media-oriented approaches. Another area that has gained increasing importance relates to the legal frameworks and national and international regulatory contexts governing tourism and heritage communication, as well as their implications for research practices, cultural mediation, and cross-border circulation.
On this basis, the conference Tourism Communication Across Time and Space: Languages, Cultural Mediations, and Historical Developments seeks to offers an opportunity to engage with the results of the DIETALY project, to extend its questions to other national and regional contexts, and to foster wider interdisciplinary discussion on the processes through which tourist destinations are represented, mediated, and imagined across time and space.
Partners
Call for papers
To submit your proposal, please send a 250-300-word abstract, including references, through the following application form.
The submission deadline is March 15, 2026. Authors will be notified of acceptance on April 1, 2026.
Registration will be open from April 1 to April 30, 2026.
Programme
Conference programme and keynote speakers
- 9.15-9.30 Welcome address: Mirella Agorni, Francesca Santulli
- 9.30-11.00 Presentation of the DIETALY project: the three research units
- “Destination Italy in English Language and Translation Over the Years, 1919-1959: Unive Research Unit”, Giulia Cavalli and Viviana Mauro (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)
- “Destination Italy in English Language and Translation Over the Years, 1960-2000: Unife Research Unit”, Valentina Di Francesco and Ilaria Iori (University of Ferrara)
- “Destination Italy in English Language and Translation Over the Years, 1980-2020: Unisalento”, David Katan (University of Salento)
- 11.00-11.15 Coffee break
- 11.15-12.15 Keynote speech - Chair: Maria Elisa Fina
“La comunicazione in ambito turistico in Italia dall’età liberale alla prima età repubblicana”, Annunziata Berrino (University of Naples Federico II) - 12.15-13.15 Session 1 - Chair: Maria Elisa Fina
- “La promozione turistica delle ‘nuove province’ nel primo dopoguerra”, Ester Capuzzo (University of Rome La Sapienza)
- “From Portugal to the world: institutional tourism discourse during the Salazar dictatorship”, Isabel Chumbo (Instituto Politécnico de Bragança)
- “Tourism in Sicily after the Second World War: Culture, Development, and Representations”, Francesca Maria Lo Faro (Independent Researcher)
- 13.15-14.30 Lunch
- 14.30-15.30 Keynote speech - Chair: Mirella Agorni
“La digitalizzazione del patrimonio culturale davanti alla sfida regolatoria: problemi e prospettive”, Giorgio Spedicato (University of Bologna) - 15.30-16.00 Coffee break
- 16.00-17.00 Round table - Chair: Mirella Agorni
- Michele Tamma, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
- Fabrizio Panozzo, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
- Federica Montaguti, CISET - International Centre of Studies on the Tourism Economy
- Elisabetta Pasqualin, Museo Nazionale Collezione Salce
- 9.00-10.00 Keynote speech - Chair: Giuseppe De Bonis
“Evoluzione delle campagne istituzionali e nuove prospettive sulla traduzione/mediazione turistica in Spagna”, Maria Vittoria Elena Calvi (University of Milan) - 10.00-11.00 Session 2 - Chair: Giuseppe De Bonis
- “Translation in Tourism Journals: Trends, Themes, and Future Directions”, Inês Carvalho (Universidade Europeia)
- “The Translator as Intercultural Designer: Negotiating Authenticity and Persuasion in Global Tourism Discourse”, Ľuboš Török (Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra)
- “Italy in translation: Institutional tourism discourse through the lens of the DIETALY project”, Giuseppe De Bonis, Maria Elisa Fina and Linda Rossato (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)
- 11.00-11.30 Coffee break
- 11.30-12.30 Keynote speech - Chair: Mirella Agorni
“American Tourist Encounters with Italy’s Changing Twentieth-Century Landscape”, David Aliano (University of Mount Saint Vincent) - 12.30-13.30 Lunch
- 13.30-14.30 Round table and networking - Chair: Linda Rossato
- Anthony Pym (Universitat Rovira i Virgili)
- Mohamed Zain Sulaiman (National University of Malaysia)
- Andrea Rizzi (University of Melbourne)
- Giorgio Spedicato (University of Bologna)
- 14.30-15.00 Closing: Mirella Agorni, Linda Rossato, Giuseppe De Bonis
Team
- Mirella Agorni, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy
- Annunziata Berrino, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
- Maria Vittoria Elena Calvi, University of Milan, Italy
- Giuseppe De Bonis, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy
- Anthony Pym, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain
- Andrea Rizzi, University of Melbourne, Australia