Expanding Sardinia's touristic vocation through communication design

The paper presents a research project on designing a communication strategy for the touristic promotion of Sardinia within Milan’s 2015 Expo. Developed on behalf of the Regional Department for Tourism and Crafts, the... [ view full abstract ]

The paper presents a research project on designing a communication strategy for the touristic promotion of Sardinia within Milan’s 2015 Expo.
Developed on behalf of the Regional Department for Tourism and Crafts, the project was jointly developed by two teams from the Universities of Sassari and Cagliari.

Among the many key issues involved considering the Expo’s promotional relevance, our research effort dealt with exploring possible ways to expand Sardinia’s touristic concept. This meant combining the more straightforward vision of Sardinia as a stunning natural sea-side destination, with additional concepts. Part of our design task implied devising ways that, in track with the event’s official keyword: Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life, could lay-out a conceptual platform for exploring other points of view. Without underrating the attractiveness of Sardinia in terms of a unique natural setting, this approach allowed the exploration of more sophisticated and up-to-date, visions of contemporary touristic promotion, offering to the Expo visitors a deeper and more problematic perspective on the island. In close collaboration with our commissioners, and in track with the claim the 'Island of the quality of life', we then worked to empower the promotional strategy encompassing additional values and qualities that can be associated with the region's peculiar state of naturality. Among these where concepts such as: quality of the environment, quality of locally produced food, sustainable innovation, and active longevity - the cornerstone elements of a strategic approach aimed at stretching Sardinia's touristic attractiveness beyond its seasonal boundaries.

Designwise, this posed our team novel and exciting challenges, resulting in the orchestration of a sophisticated strategy integrating various aspects of design in a unique communication toolbox.
While the results of this rather unique experimental opportunity are still under development, the Expo proved to be an unique testbed for our ideas as well as a very successful and well-received project. The temporary Sardinian Pavilion we designed was visited in its week-long opening by more then ninety-thousand people, while one of the short films we produced as part of our multimedia strategy scored alone more than one-hundred thousand-thirty hits on Facebook in a matter of days.