Who We Are:

Founded in October 2005, the Ager Foundation is the pioneer and leading promoter of agro and eco tourism in the island region of Gozo. Its role as a non-profit making non-governmental organisation is to act as a catalyst in the field of induction to sustainable, environmentally friendly tourism as well as advancing environmentally ventures where visitors are enabled to actually experience the healthy local lifestyle.

This is the first innovative project in the island of Gozo in creating a responsible tourism infrastructure based on eco and agro tourism criterion.

The Ager Foundation of Gozo has been short listed for the 2006 First Choice Responsible Tourism Awards from over 1200 nominations from discerning travellers. These awards are the most prestigious of their kind in the world. The First Choice Responsible Tourism Awards highlight tourism ventures that make a positive contribution to conservation and the economies of local communities while minimizing negative environmental impacts of tourism.

Our organization is also a member of the Terra Madre Slow Food International and was invited to take an active part in the World Meeting of Food Communities in Turin back in 2006. We organized a presentation called: ‘Responsible tourism and the culture of hospitality’ by giving examples of our services.

Our Responsible

Tourism Policy

Meaning of Ager

Our mission is to educate, promote and improve the quality of the life and the sustainable rural development by offering hands-on experiences with the locals.

The project aims to create a tourism infrastructure while encouraging new entrepreneurial activities in rural areas of the island of Gozo by:

Capitalising on a more significant sustainable advantage of Gozo as a tourist destination and a unique selling proposition: the people, the hospitality tradition, the culture and countryside and its ecology;

Smoothening out the seasonality pattern of Gozo tourism, as agro tourism in Gozo is basically an all weather product;

Directing tourists to the countryside, thus allowing for a less biased geographical distribution of the tourist population in the island-region;

Marketing Gozo as a unique destination while providing a focus of action and debate for participants (both service providers and service users) to promote and implement the values of respect towards traditions and culture in an ecologically sustainable society.

Created & Hosted www.ingozo.com

Basically the word Ager has two meanings. The Latin Etymology of Ager means a field. We like this meaning since it indicates that this project is directly related with human’s work and its direct connection with nature and mother earth. The second meaning of Ager derives from the Romance meaning ‘to act’ and ‘to be doing’. This is also a very suitable meaning for the Ager Foundation since our services focus on giving a hands-on experience to our guests since we encourage them to take an active part in the events.

The Ager Foundation became a a member of the Slow Food Movement in 2007. The Slow Food Movement is a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world. To do that, Slow Food brings together pleasure and responsibility, and makes them inseparable. Today, we have over 100,000 members in 132 countries.