Hotel & Tourism SMARTreport #45

Hotel & Tourism
SMARTreport #45
2020 Winter Edition 5
5
AIMING FOR €5BN RISE
IN TOURISM TRADE
BALANCE FOR ITALY
Exclusive Interview – Giorgio Palmucci,
President – the Italian National Tourist Board (ENIT)
Since taking office at the beginning of 2019 for a three-year tenure,
Giorgio Palmucci has been working hard to create a vision for the
local industry for the coming years. We asked him to tell us about
his plans and strategy.
The first main element is that of
sustainability. Italy’s promotional strategy
is centred around this when it comes to
promoting our destinations and tourism
products. We are also aiming to convince
people to visit Italy during the low season
or follow circuits that are off the beaten
track. Our marketing strategy is based
on value growth, enhancing the value of
our country through the promotion of
authenticity and experiences to conscious
travellers who wish to deepen their
knowledge of “off the beaten track”
destinations, but also who want to look
with different eyes the most popular
ones. Recent surveys show that 58%
of travellers would choose not to visit a
place if doing so has a negative impact on
its inhabitants. Moreover, 86% of global
travellers are willing to engage with actives
that counteract the environmental impact
of their trip.
What are the biggest challenges to
increasing visitor numbers, and how
are you addressing these?
We do not aim expressly to increase
visitors, but to do that out of the high
season from June to August and to move
tourism where there is slightly lesserknown
cultural heritage, by suggesting
for them to visit not only the big, but also
small cultural destinations, coastal and
inner rural areas, enjoying them in winter
and spring time. Indeed, our value growth
tourism strategy implies specific objectives,
in terms of increase of income for our
tourism businesses, increase of average
overnights, less seasonality and increase
of overnights in less known destinations,
where 64% of our 55 UNESCO sites are
located.
Please tell us more about your added
efforts for promotion in China, the USA
and the Middle East.
These three markets are targeted in our
promotional plan thanks to different
actions that we have been planning.
China is essentially a market where the
tourism demand is changing in depth,
moving from groups of “golden age”
tourists visiting our major art cities to
future couple of affluent baby-boomers,
Gen X and millennials, interested in new
small cultural destinations to be visited
during the whole year. Therefore, in China,
we are opening two new ENIT offices to
be able to promote Italy correctly to each
specific target. In the USA, the main target
is those of affluent and HNWI (high net
worth individuals) and we are organising
specific workshops to connect Italian and
American tourism systems. In the Middle
East, we are orienting the promotion to
health and wellness tourism because of the
huge prospective of these tourism products
both in the multigenerational groups than
in the emerging market of millennials.
WE THINK THE
CHINESE MARKET IS
VERY IMPORTANT, AS
THERE ARE ALMOST
140 MILLION
CHINESE PEOPLE
TRAVELLING ABROAD
EVERY YEAR, THREE
MILLION OF WHOM
COME TO ITALY.
We think it is very important to work on
the individual tourist, but we are faced
with the challenge of too few direct flights
to Italy. If it comes to group travel, these
travellers generally arrive in Paris, London of
Frankfurt, meaning they spend only a short
time in our country. This is why we prefer