Turismo, invecchiamento, salute e benessere: riflessioni dai contributi del professor Marcello Cesa-Bianchi.

Over recent decades, leisure travel has increasingly involved older people, even for very faraway destinations. Professor Marcello Cesa-Bianchi - he himself a great traveller, right up to the last days of his long life - carried out a lot of research and in-depth analysis, leading him to consider travel to be a unique opportunity to develop knowledge, meet new people and experience different ways of behaving, habits and customs, substantially learning about ourselves and the surroundings with which we interact. He highlighted how tourism can create psychophysical well-being in the elderly, help them to rediscover emotions and memories, facilitate communications, with a particular focus on intergenerational communication, develop creativity and personal growth, educate them with regard to respecting the local area and the environment and promote the overcoming of prejudice and a better culture of integration. He underlined how tourism can also represent a metaphor for an inner journey that allows us to express and enhance our feeling of self worth, representing a positive experience able to activate new and significant paths towards good health and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]