Virtual Renaissance: Online tourism breathes new life in ailing industry

As museums and historical sites in Italy slowly begin opening their doors after several months of lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, technology may prove to be the “renaissance” the country’s tourism industry desperately needs.

Recently, countries within the European Union have opened their borders following months of lockdowns and restrictions. However, nonessential travel from countries still reeling from the increasing number of infections — including the United States, Brazil and Russia — is still barred.

The travel restrictions, consequently, have caused once-bustling tourist hotspots in Rome during the summer months to be practically empty.

Nevertheless, as the saying goes, necessity is truly the mother of invention.

The pandemic dramatically changed the way in which people communicate, purchase and sell goods and services, as well as engaging in activities, like visiting museums, all with a click of a mouse or a swipe on a tablet.

Already in 2018, the Vatican Museums worked on developing seamless virtual walkthroughs of its vast collections with a 360-degree, high-definition view available through its website, museivaticani.va.

Originally conceived as a way of temporarily resolving accessibility issues, particularly for visitors using wheelchairs, the virtual tours have become a way for would-be tourists unable to travel to take in the breathtaking masterpieces on display in the museums’ hallowed halls.

Yet, the concept of virtual tourism may also provide a much-needed boost to Italy’s ailing tourism industry post-lockdown, especially for many guides who have been left on the wayside.

According to a July 2 statement by Federturismo Confindustria, a national association of Italy’s travel and tourism companies, the first four months of 2020 saw a 40% drop in international tourism and the loss of an estimated $195 billion in tourism in the country.

While the Italian government has taken a measured approach in allowing groups to visit museums and public sites, ensuring the health and safety of visitors and residents, it also threatens the livelihood of tour guides as well as an industry that makes up an estimated 13.3% of Italy’s gross domestic product.

“It’s kind of funny to find out that as far as the government is concerned, we are sort of ‘less than the less than,’ and so I think it’s been very difficult for us to find ourselves not only out of work, but with really no plan of how to bring us back into the picture,” Rome-based art historian Elizabeth Lev told Catholic News Service July 8.

However, Italy’s lockdown prompted Lev to create the Masters’ Gallery Rome, a new virtual tour website where visitors not only contemplate the beauty and wonders of Rome’s artistic heritage, but also learn their origins from experienced historians and scholars.

“So far, there’s really nothing on the horizon to suggest that there’s any plan to put forth our work, our expertise, our years of study, which doesn’t seem to be something that the government or the tourism industry in Italy seems to value in any way,” she said. “So, we thought we would show people what we’re worth.”

Visitors of the new website, mastersgalleryrome.teachable.com, can enroll in courses where they can discover the wonders of St. Peter’s Basilica, unearth the archaeological marvels of the Roman port city of Ostia Antica or learn about the inspiration behind the works of Caravaggio.

Lev told CNS that what separates the Masters’ Gallery Rome from most virtual tours already available online is “the idea of really breaking down the information, breaking down what it is you’re seeing, explaining it, sharing it, pulling out the bits of knowledge that you need to know in order to understand the image.”

The benefits of the Masters’ Gallery Rome, she noted, go beyond the practical reasons of being able to see and learn about historical sites and artistic depictions in a time when access to such things are greatly limited.

It also serves as a preparation that allows future tourists and pilgrims to truly appreciate Rome’s vast heritage and “stimulate a hunger on the part of visitors to see parts of Rome that are not on the top 10 TripAdvisor reviews,” she said.

“Tourism began really in the 18th century as ‘The Grand Tour,’ where people prepared before they came because traveling was a privilege, traveling was an honor, traveling was something that was very difficult, often dangerous,” Lev told CNS. “So, in order to get the most out of that experience, people went to the trouble of reading and learning; many of them learned Latin and Greek to begin ‘The Grand Tour.’”

“I’m not suggesting you need to learn Latin and Greek, but a little bit of getting ready and knowing what you’re going to see will only make your experience greater and allow you to really move beyond the tsunami of information you receive once you get here and begin to open yourself up to how the art, the history and the faith all work together,” she said.

As many parents are confronted with the prospect of continuing to homeschool for the rest of the year, Lev said the Masters’ Gallery Rome can also be helpful in presenting “history, humanities, art, the things that are being dropped by the wayside and to be able to instill them in the next generation.”

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Sanctuaries, shrines Catholics can ‘visit’ virtually in Europe, Mideast

Despite ongoing and unpredictable travel restrictions, there are still a number of important sites, shrines and sanctuaries people can “visit” online in Europe and the Middle East.

In fact, the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France will be holding a worldwide online pilgrimage July 16 — the anniversary of the last apparition of the Virgin Mary.

Everyone is invited to join the online initiative, which will be livestreamed for 15 hours in 10 languages from the Grotto of Lourdes.

For more than 160 years, the sanctuary has been an essential place for millions of people who visit each year, seeking hope, healing, fraternity and deepened faith, the event’s promoters said in a news release June 30.

“The world is facing an unprecedented economic and social crisis, coupled with an unprecedented quest for meaning,” it said.

And the “Lourdes United e-pilgrimage will bring together all those who, in the four corners of the world, see Lourdes as a beacon of faith, commitment, sharing and hope,” it added.

Navigating the top of the homepage at lourdes-france.org/en, visitors can also find ways to request a Mass, light a candle and place a prayer petition in the grotto.

Here are several other places important to Catholics that are offering some kind of virtual visit or livestreaming service. Many of these online sites are also appealing for donations since lockdowns and restrictions have seriously reduced a major source of income from pilgrimages and tourism.

— The Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land oversees 55 sanctuaries in Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan. Visitors at custodia.org/en/sanctuaries can get a more in-depth look at these sacred places, especially the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, revered as the site of Jesus’s tomb, in Jerusalem.

— The Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal offers a livestream of the chapel and live daily broadcasts of praying the rosary and Mass at fatima.pt/en/pages/online-transmissions. The same link also provides a gallery of pictures, videos and “sounds,” including an audio library of Marian hymns.

— Though only in Italian, the Holy House of Loreto near the Adriatic Sea in Italy posts videos of their daily Masses and the recitation of the rosary on their YouTube channel “Santa Casa Loreto.”

Their main website at santuarioloreto.it, also only in Italian, has links for sending prayer intentions and for seeing photos and videos of the sanctuary, which tradition holds is where Mary was born and raised and where the Holy Family was thought to have lived when Jesus was a boy. The one-room Holy House also is held to be the place where Mary received the angel’s annunciation and conceived the Son of God through the Holy Spirit.

— The website of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi offers a huge list of online opportunities, all in Italian, but still visually enriching, like a livestream of the tomb of St. Francis with an option of sending a prayer petition at sanfrancescopatronoditalia.it/web-cam-cripta-di-san-francesco-assisi and a livestream of daily Mass in the basilica.

There is a 360-degree virtual tour of the basilica at http://www.sanfrancescopatronoditalia.it/basilica/ and of the tomb at http://www.sanfrancescopatronoditalia.it/visita-virtuale-tomba-san-francesco/. The 13th-century basilica had to be painstakingly restored, including its frescoes by Giotto, after a devastating earthquake in 1997.

— While a special online exposition of the Shroud of Turin was held April 11 for prayer and contemplation during the coronavirus epidemic, the recorded event, with commentary in English, can still be found online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7BmsSE_4Wk.

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For more information on Masters’ Gallery Rome: https://mastersgalleryrome.teachable.com

Vatican Museums:

http://m.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani-mobile/en/utility/search.html?q=virtual
http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/index_sistina_en.htm
http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/index_paolina_en.htm
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/necropoli/scavi_english.html

Rome’s Basilicas:

http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/vr_tour/index-en.html
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_giovanni/vr_tour/index-en.html
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_paolo/vr_tour/index-en.html
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/sm_maggiore/vr_tour/index-en.html