WELLNESS
Valley of wellness The Romagna region of Italy has created a unique wellness ecosystem involving public and private investment to boost tourism in the area, improve public health and get its people moving. Jane Kitchen visits to find out more
H
ealth is important for everybody – because a healthy lifestyle decreases the health costs for governments, increases the productivity for companies and improves the quality of life for everybody,” says Nerio Alessandri, founder and president of gym equipment supplier Technogym. So what if everybody worked together to promote health and wellness at a local level? Wouldn’t everyone benefit? That’s what Alessandri thought, back in 2001, when he proposed that public and private stakeholders in Romagna, Italy – where Technogym’s headquarters are located – work together to bring wellness to the region.
Wellness Foundation “The idea was to develop the Romagna area, creating the first district in the world that forms a benchmark for quality of life,” says Alessandri. “Using Technogym as the catalyst, we mobilised all stakeholders in Romagna – companies, public administrators, tourism operators, schools, universities and the public health system – to work together to improve public health, boost the economy and raise the quality of the environment in order to attract
more and better qualified people who were in search of a wellness experience.” To do this, he set up the Wellness Foundation, a non-profit that unites the region in all things wellness. Governments, hospitals, universities, schools and businesses all work together to create a ‘wellness ecosystem’ called the Wellness Valley. The foundation’s aims are twofold: to improve the quality of life for those in the region, and to promote wellness tourism as a way for
The idea was to develop the Romagna area, creating the first district in the world that forms a benchmark for quality of life… We used Technogym as the catalyst
EDUCATION The University of Bologna has relocated
University is a project to develop studies with a wellness
a large portion of
focus and includes
its degree courses
57 programmes in
and masters courses focused on quality-of-life subjects to its Romagnabased campuses. This includes subjects including food sciences,
72
The Wellness Multicampus
movement, health, biotechnologies, tourism, economy, the arts, and nutrition. A new graduate degree
architecture, psychology,
programme on Wellness Culture:
biotechnology, cultural heritage
Health, Sport and Tourism
and tourism economics.
began in October 2017.
Alessandri says people in Cesena are 10 per cent more active than the rest of Italy thanks to the Wellness Valley