Often dubbed the world’s most beautiful city, Rome’s cobbled piazzas, baroque churches and abundance of ancient archeological sites have long drawn tourists from around the globe.
But for the new deputy mayor, what the Eternal City really needs to keep visitors coming is not museums, but fun rides.
“The model is EuroDisney in Paris,” said Mauro Cutrufo, as he announced plans for a 500-hectare theme park on the outskirts of Rome, which could be ready in three years.
If Cutrufo gets his way, anyone bored of touring actual remains of republican and imperial Rome can head to the suburbs to see the same thing in fiberglass.
“You would relive scenes from the Colosseum, from ancient Rome, gladiators or maybe Julius Caesar or other things,” a Rome city official said.
After taking power in Rome this year, Cutrufo and Mayor Gianni Alemanno have sought to reverse the cultural legacy of former mayor Walter Veltroni. The free jazz concerts staged by Veltroni are gone, as is the annual White Night, an all-night event of open galleries and museums.
Cutrufo launched his alternative vision of Roman rides, bouncy Colosseums and candyfloss at a tourism conference. Unlike the young single tourists attracted to Rome by events such as White Night, Cutrufo said he wanted to attract more families to visit, to reverse a slight drop in visitor numbers, “because families contain more people.”
DISPUTE
More than 30 picketers were arrested outside Disneyland in California on Thursday in a contract dispute between Disney and its hotel workers.
The protesters were taken away in handcuffs after sitting in a busy intersection outside the park, many of them dressed as Disney characters such as Cinderella and Peter Pan.
The arrests followed a march by hundreds of maids, cooks and dishwashers from three Disney hotels.
The workers’ contract expired in February, and their union said Disney’s latest offer would make health care unaffordable and create an unfair two-tier wage system.
A Disney spokeswoman said that negotiations were ongoing.
The dispute involves 2,300 workers at the Paradise Pier, Grand Californian and Disneyland hotels.
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS