Between October 19 and 26, Chania will host two very serious European projects: Project 2025-1-IT01-KA121-VET-000336288 and its catchy sequel Project 2024-1-IT01-KA121-VET-000207665.
If you can pronounce either without water, congratulations — you are already halfway to a certificate.
These projects, under the majestic umbrella of ERASMUS+, promise to “enhance skills in marketing, management, sustainable tourism, and climate awareness.” Translation: a week in Crete where fifty-two Italian hoteliers will learn that “all-inclusive” does not include tsikoudia before noon.
The opening ceremony will take place on Monday, October 20, at the MAICh Conference Centre’s “Aristotle Amphitheatre,” because nothing says relax and learn like being lectured under Aristotle’s ghost.
After the speeches, guests will tour the Botanical Garden and the Garden of Peace, perhaps the calmest places left in Chania once fifty-two Italians start comparing management techniques. From 14:30 to 17:30, professors will deliver presentations on tourism strategy — a noble effort that will compete with the siren call of the café across the street.
Cretan Wisdom, Italian Style
In the days to follow, the visitors will meet every possible authority figure — the Region of Chania, the Municipality of Platanias, the Hotel Owners’ Association, the Chamber of Commerce — and possibly the guy who waters the flowers at Eleftherios Venizelos Square. Each meeting will include the word synergy at least twice and a promise to exchange “good practices.”
Rumor has it, the highlight will be field visits to agrotourism businesses, where the guests will learn that Cretan sustainability involves three essential principles: grow it, eat it, and brag about it.
Graduation Day
On Friday, October 24, the grand finale: the certificate ceremony. Every participant will receive a framed acknowledgment of survival through seven days of PowerPoint slides and polite nodding. Chania’s printers are already overheating.
Locals expect the city to return to normal once the last group selfie is taken and the final “grazie” echoes out of the MAICh amphitheatre.
Behind the polite bureaucracy, there’s something genuinely charming about it all: people from two Mediterranean corners gathering to talk tourism on an island that already lives it daily.
Still, one hopes the next Erasmus project drops the numbers and calls itself something honest, like “Fifty-Two Italians and a Laptop: How to Survive a Seminar in Paradise.”
