The symposium was the first installment of Tunisia’s Living Culture, a year-long initiative to develop cultural heritage tourism experiences.

Over the course of the multi-day event, attendees shared their rich knowledge to share knowledge on topics such as oral traditions and expressions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, historical relationships with nature, artisanship, culinary routines, and more. The contributions and ensuing discussions were rich, drawing on personal insights regarding the richness of Tunisia’s cultures and customs.

The successful symposium puts a spotlight on Tunisia’s distinctive cultural practices and aids the Center’s further work with understanding the important perspective of Tunisians and their traditions.

“Tunisia’s vibrant intangible cultural heritage—gastronomy, craft, music, dance, and storytelling—is underdeveloped and often missing from the tourist experience,” the Smithsonian Center’s Director of Special Projects, Halle Butvin says. “Tunisia’s Living Culture will support tradition bearers and their communities to create tourism experiences, where they can share cultural practices with visitors and directly benefit from tourism revenues.”

Participants in the event were selected via a call to participate that was open until late August. A diverse participant pool was sought out and recruited, to assemble the best-positioned Tunisian scholars and cultural heritage professionals from USAID Visit Tunisia Activity’s six focus regions: Tabarka–Aïn Draham, Kairouan, Gabes, Tozeur, Kebili–Douz, and Tataouine.

This year-long program will continue with a series of events and workshops dedicated to promoting the sustainability of cultural heritage practices in USAID Visit Tunisia’s six target regions. This emphasizes the importance of community-based cultural heritage representation in tourism development. This initiative also highlights Tunisia’s commitments to the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003).

The next event in the series is scheduled for November, where Halle Butvin will lead training workshops for local scholars and tradition-bearers to develop concepts for new tourism experiences.

Keep up with USAID Visit Tunisia to read more about this exciting initiative and see how it continues to unfold in the next year.