Our story
We are Laura Gasparini (Argentina) and Stefan Lazic (Serbia), tourism professionals with 20 years of combined work experience in the private and non-profit tourism sector, gained in Europe, Latin America and Oceania.
We created Echoes of the Journey in 2018 to contribute to developing more responsible tourism that benefits all parties involved: the local community and their culture, Nature and travellers. We achieve this by actively collaborating with initiatives that develop tourism either as a contributing or leading socio-economic activity in supporting local livelihoods. Among others, we have worked with NGOs, hotels, tour operators, local tourism offices, social enterprises, indigenous and rural tourism cooperatives and academic institutions. With our experience in the areas of sustainability assessment and certifications, capacity building, project management, local development, product development and distribution, we help communities and places thrive through tourism.
As an added value, we give visibility to all these initiatives that use tourism as a tool for socio-economic community-led development and environmental conservation. We share their stories here and in other media channels, such as Travindy, to inspire others to follow their example so that responsibility in tourism becomes the norm rather than the exception.
Our first project was a 10-month journey around Latin America (from Argentina to Mexico) where we got involved in different responsible tourism initiatives. You can read the stories and best practices we encountered in the Latin America project section.
Throughout these years, we have understood that the current practices for sustaining and developing the tourism sector are insufficient and that a radical shift in tourism planning is needed to secure a viable future for our societies. Therefore, we actively support the transition to regenerative development, where change is achievable through a whole living system approach with humans and their activities nested within Nature, contributing to its health and progress.
We are based in Italy, working as researchers in the context of two PhD programmes at the Universities of Bologna and Trento, where we are advancing knowledge on regenerative tourism development and cultural heritage valorisation. At the same time, we continue working independently as advisors, being partners of Planet 4 People network and Planeterra Foundation.
We are open to different kinds of collaborations, so feel free to contact us through this form