All together for the ancient theater of Sparta

The 6th meeting of the corporate members of the DIAZOMA Association took place in Sparta, Peloponnese, at the Mystra Grand Palace Resort and Spa from 5 to 7 April 2019.

The meeting was opened by Evangelos Valiotis, Mayor of Sparta, Athanasios Davakis, MP of Laconia, Adamantia Tzanetea, Deputy Prefect of Laconia, Yannis Varvitsiotis, former Minister and Stavros Benos, President of the DIAZOMA Association.

The central theme of this year’s meeting was “The Restoration of the Ancient Theater of Sparta: Local, National and Global Responsibility”. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation has paved the way by donating 111,000 euros to finance the restoration study of this great theater and the foundation JM Kaplan, based in New York, took over by offering $ 100,000 (81070.13 euros) to finance the first part of its restoration. Works should begin in 2019.

The 6th meeting was organized around three topics:

1. Laconia and Sparta, a perpetual myth
2. The actions and vision of our corporate members
3. The restoration of the ancient theater of Sparta: local, national and global responsibility

Evangelia Pantos, Head of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Laconia, John Bennet, Director of the British School of Archeology, George Agouridis, Board Member of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and Will Reynolds, Program Director for the Heritage Conservation of JM KAPLAN Foundation presented their views on the revival of the ancient theater of Sparta.

In the second part, all the actions developed in collaboration with the corporate members of the association, whose main objective is to place the monuments at the core of a region’s life as part of its sustainable development, were exposed.  The central theme of the section was the search for the best proposals for the exploitation and management of the new destinations that we develop and implement in collaboration with the institutions and citizens of the country (Cultural Routes and Archaeological Parks).

The ensuing discussion emphasized the need to ensure the continued development and effective management of these holistic cultural tourism programs through an appropriate management and monitoring mechanism, that is a Destination Management and Marketing Organization (DMMO). Below you can see the corresponding video entitled “Destination Management and Marketing Organization”.

At the end of the 6th meeting of the DIAZOMA association with its corporate members, the participants declared the experience very rewarding and motivating, demonstrating once again that investing in synergies is the appropriate way to achieve our goal, that is the promotion of the monuments of our country.

You can see pictures of the meeting here;