Planning and sustainability. The post-Covid recovery sees tourism in Italy and around the world facing the same old challenges. But today they need new answers for new times that, most importantly, reply to the needs of destinations and markets.
Starting with the institutions which “can no longer reason with a horizon of five to six years at most," emphasised Giorgio Palmucci, former councillor of the Italian Ministry of Tourism, at the 8th edition of Travel Hashtag. The event masterminded by Nicola Romanelli was held a few days ago in Borgo Egnazia in Puglia, and we had the pleasure of listening to many interesting insights into the thousand and one tourism sectors of today and tomorrow...
An industry as articulated and complex as travel cannot disregard adequate market segmentation: "We always talk about tourism, when instead we should be saying tourisms," said Rocco Forte Hotels’ group director operations Antonello De Medici. "Anyone investing in luxury as we do has to consider a destination’s entire ecosystem of services. And this means at least a ten-year perspective.”
Then there is the high-end product which has the potential to create alternative destinations, resolving, among other things, the critical issue of over-tourism which, up to 2019 was a thorn in the side of quite a few Italian destinations. “The high-end customer wants experiences, experiences, experiences,” said Max Zanardi, the Marzocco Group’s CEO. Quite true, agreed host Emanuele Manfroi, general manager of the San Domenico Hotels group which includes Borgo Egnazia. Provided “the high-end product is truly sustainable for the local community. Only in this way can the luxury investment activate a virtuous circle that can make everything around it grow.”
Massimiliano Sarti
Journalist
