How are the parties talking about tourism ahead of the September 25 elections?

Ahead of the general elections next September 25, we continue our journey through the parties’ programs to see how much and how much they talk about issues of interest to the readers of Finestre Sull’Arte. After the analysis done on the issue of “culture” now it is the turn of ’tourism’. We will do the analysis on the programs of Fratelli d’Italia, Lega, Forza Italia, Noi Moderati, Pd, Green and Left Alliance, 5 Star Movement, Azione-Italia Viva, Unione Popolare.

Let’s start with the center-right where Forza Italia, Lega, Fratelli d’Italia, and Noi Moderati have shared and signed a “Framework Program Agreement” that would be the basis for a government led by them. The program is divided into fifteen thematic points argued within them schematically with the areas of action envisaged. The tenth point is entitled “Made in Italy, culture and tourism” declined in turn into 10 other points. The first one to point out, in our opinion, having been a workhorse of the League, Fratelli d’Italia and Forza Italia for years is the one that reads “Protection of boating and seaside businesses: 8,000 km of coastline, 300,000 employees in the sector, a heritage that must be protected.”

The reference is to European Union Directive 2006/123/EC, named after its drafter, Frits Bolkestein, enacted in 2006 and relating to services and competition in the common market, which is hyper-challenged in Italy by holders of public concessions (such as those on state maritime property used by bathing establishments or those of public land used by street vendors) precisely because it would impose that they can no longer be tacitly renewed beyond a certain number of years they must be put back out to tender by public bidding. The three major parties of the center-right in recent years have distinguished themselves by an almost identity-based battle on this issue by rejecting the logic of putting concessions back up for auction. A “No” to the application of Bolkestein that in any case impacts for beaches mostly in Veneto, Romagna, Liguria and Tuscany: regions where the density of bathing establishments is at the saturation threshold and it is therefore impossible to have entrances of new concessionary entrepreneurs into the market except by buying concessions from those who already have them or by taking over management. From Lazio and Marche downwards, those who would like to undertake entrepreneurial activity in the sector have at their disposal large areas of free coastline not given in concession and therefore the application of this Directive is felt much less because there is room for everyone and the European norm in fact specifies that the application is for situations of ’scarce resource’ to be granted.

Of the other nine points, two emphasize the ’organization of events as a drive for tourism growth and attraction: an innovative choice that looks to the future of a country that has consolidated art-related tourism, now a mature market. It says in fact, “Support for the entertainment sector and incentives for the organization of events at the national level” and “Support for Italy’s presence in the circuits of major international events.” It goes on to say, “Protection and promotion of cultural, artistic, archaeological, tangible and intangible heritage, and enhancement of cultural professions that constitute Italy’s economic and identity driving force”; “Enhancement and promotion of a diversified tourism offer” unspecified; “Supporting the digitization of the entire tourism and culture sector supply chain”; and “Countering the abusive exercise of tourism and culture professions and activities,” an issue that is very much on the minds of those working in the sector. Among the parties that have signed this future government pact, the one that has most characterized its action on tourism in recent years is undoubtedly the League: the current Minister of Tourism Massimo Garavaglia is a Lega: and the current Minister of Tourism Massimo Garavaglia is a Lega, and Gian Marco Centinaio was also a Lega, who in the Conte I government made the Minister of Agricultural Policies with delegated authority to Tourism, wrested from Culture. Ministry that even in the current set-up is without this delegation since after so many years Tourism has a dedicated minister.

Let us turn to the Pd, a party that expresses the current Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, who in the Conte II government also had Tourism, as was the case previously for long years apart from the parenthesis of the merger with the Ministry of Agriculture under Centinaio. On the choice of what kind of dignity to give to Tourism made by the various governments in the years following the referendum that voted for the abolition of the Dicatero to Tourism (whether to couple it with Culture or with food excellence or to endow it with its own ministry) we will talk about it soon in an article here on Finestre Sull’Arte.

The Pd’s program consists of many more pages than the center-right’s Framework Agreement, with 37 pages the General Program to which 16 insights are attached. In the program, tourism does not have a dedicated section but it is dealt with in one of the insights: five pages entitled “Crafts, Trade and Tourism.” While in the general program it is nevertheless addressed on two occasions: the first is in the section devoted to schools where one can find a strong push for a type of tourism linked to cities of art: “...We propose the establishment of a National Fund for school trips, school outings, after-school leisure time and the purchase of sports equipment and musical instruments that will supplement regional funding...” School trips benefit all those cities that with museums can introduce children to what they have read in class in books. Tourism is also mentioned in the Education and Culture part of the program. In fact, a continuation and revitalization of the National Plan Borghi is proposed, a “strengthening of the National Plan Great Projects Cultural Heritage; international promotion of the Italian Capital of Culture. This will make it possible to enrich the offer of cultural tourism, the promotion of forms of slow tourism in a sustainable key, encouraging innovative travel experiences, as in the case of historical trains with high panoramic views. Also part of this logic is the strengthening of cultural offerings in the suburbs of metropolitan cities with projects for social inclusion, territorial rebalancing and employment protection, and the enhancement of tangible and intangible cultural heritage through the performing and visual arts.”

In the in-depth study “Handicrafts, trade and tourism,” there is a revitalization of the National Tourism Agency (ENIT), a “major plan for the redevelopment of hotel facilities through theestablishment of a national revolving fund with 15-year loans, and introduction of incentives to encourage the sale of hotel properties to operators to facilitate investment in facilities”; the “support for the mountain tourism, spa and conference tourism sectors; and promotion of green and outdoor tourism.”

As for the application of Bolkestein, on the other hand, the PD thinks the opposite of the center right, namely that the renewal of concessions should be done by public bidding but in case a current concessionaire loses it he should still be paid some sort of compensation, although without ever mentioning it explicitly. In fact, the pages of the Dem Program read: “Provision, in the renewal of beach concessions, for an adequate valorization of the businesses of the outgoing concessionaires, in compliance with EU regulations.” Qualifying the point on ’access to credit that the PD intends to “ensure it is as easy” as possible “so as to create the conditions to allow crafts, trade and tourism to face the current economic situation and play a leading role in economic and digital transitions. Indeed, we believe that micro and small businesses should be the driving force behind a new model of development, spread throughout the territory and built on sustainability and openness to innovation.”

The 5 Star Movement in its program titles the chapter “On the side of tourism: to enhance our cultural and artistic heritage,” which is followed by 3 programmatic points: the first would be “The establishment of a platform to match the needs of tourists and the offer of the Italian territory, useful to increase the ability to sell products and services also of agricultural and artisan SMEs,” a sort of state Trivago. At the second point a “public recruitment plan to overcome the serious undersize of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and its peripheral institutions with a brake on outsourcing and contrasting the distorted use of volunteer and cultural workers,” at the third only “measures to protect and enhance the Italian cultural heritage.”

In the Italia Viva - Action program, references to tourism are many, even beyond the chapter devoted to it. It is by far the program that talks about it the most with analysis and proposals. It starts on the first pages with the paragraph entitled “Complete the reforms on competition” where it states the need for the application of the Bolkestein Directive for all concession sectors: from maritime domain to public land for stalls, from cabs to Ncc to non-scheduled public transport. In fact, it reads, “We need to pass competition laws every year that gradually-and while respecting the social sustainability of the changes-make our economy freer and less burdened by barriers to entry and restrictions on competition. The aim is to foster innovation, growth and consumer protection so that they can have more goods and services available to them and at lower prices. The reform of beach concessions approved by the Draghi government needs to be implemented - paying special attention to households that have in the concession the predominant source of income and have made investments in the structure; a liberalization of non-scheduled public transport needs to be implemented, with special attention to the adaptation of technological platforms to the rules of the services of the sector and its different reference markets (Taxi/NCC). Ninety-three percent of the local public services operating today have been entrusted without competition. The lack of competitive procedures negatively affects the quality and cost of services, thus public spending, productivity and growth in the country. Local public services at the expiration of the service contract must be entrusted preferentially by tender, providing - for the case of exercising the option of in-house entrusting - a cogent and comparative assessment of the quality of the service offered and identifying the related costs for users.” Specifically for the South, the following is indicated as a priority to jumpstart the Mezzogiorno: “Increase the share of non-bathing tourism to ensure greater continuity. The Mezzogiorno attracts fewer tourists than the rest of the country (18.5 percent of the total) and compared to other areas bordering the Mediterranean. What it hosts, is a predominantly seaside tourism characterized by strong seasonality and low contribution to value added. To exploit the tourism potential of the South, it is necessary to increase the per capita spending of southern municipalities on culture: as of today there is an expenditure of 8.9 euros, which is less than half the national average. It is also necessary to improve reception capacity (in the South there are 17.1 percent of Italian accommodation facilities) and the quality of related services.”

The chapter on Tourism first proposes to go back to the year 2000 by re-allocating the delegation to the state. Before Title V of the Constitution was reformed in 2001, in fact, regional legislative power over tourism was exercised within the limits of the principles established by state laws. In contrast, the current legislative framework “leaves each region with veto power over any attempt at harmonization and fragments the national tourism offer. In order to equip the country with the institutional tools necessary for the development of a systemic policy, it is necessary to re-centralize the competence of tourism.” On the business side, the two parties propose reducing the tax burden in the sector by commensurating “the TARI to the number of days the facility is open and the occupancy rate; supporting the quality of reception and hospitality activities with incentives for the redevelopment of facilities, in parallel with a too-often postponed definition of the national classification of facilities.” Among the novelties is the idea of “Investing in Rail Tourism. The PNRR provides for the strengthening of railway lines in Italy: it will be possible to reach inland and lesser-known territories by train. It is necessary for the Ministry of Tourism to promote, in order to enhance the territories involved, cultural routes in collaboration with the companies of the railway network: train tickets to make the routes will be sold in packages at subsidized prices.” Proposal a bit generic and difficult to apply in reality. Another new proposal is on “emergency management,” for which they propose to "establish measures to protect the income of businesses and seasonal workers affected by the damage; set up immediate communication tools aimed at the transmission of correct information and the revitalization of the tourist image of the affected destinations; and define an agreement between the civil protection system and professional organizations to improve the organization of the reception of those who remain without accommodation."

Renzi and Calenda propose to start again from the school: there is in fact the chapter “Strengthening tourism training” where they start from the fact that thecurrent tourism training of high schools and hoteltechnical institutes “is not adequate to Italy’s tourism positioning and the quality offer to which it aspires. We therefore propose to: revise the curricula of professional institutes according to the needs of the sector, putting, for example, greater emphasis on foreign languages; create a specialized school with university courses dedicated to the training of directors and managers of tourism.”

The Green Alliance-Italian Left program titles Chapter 11 “Italy, beauty” and within it prioritizes the protection of artistic and cultural heritage and proposes that Article 6 of the Competition Decree be blocked and thesecuritizations "that put State Assets (including barracks, abbeys, castles) up for sale be revised." The inference is that they are in favor of the implementation of Bolkestein and indeed, building on what has been done in past years, they are for increasing the space dedicated to free beaches, which are in short supply in some of the most sought-after areas.

There is a paragraph devoted to “Historical centers and the preservation of beauty” where it is written: “Italy does not have great oil deposits, but its great cultural and economic resource lies in beauty, beauty of the extraordinary hill and mountain seascapes (not always respected), beauty of the great heritage of works of art, farmhouses, walled towns, ancient villages, historic centers unique in the world, enclosed even in small remote municipalities and, if we wanted and knew how to see them, in the suburbs of cities. We want to recover and safeguard the constituent elements of our identity, aware that only from their preservation can come lasting prosperity for our country.” Left and Green, also call for the “promotion of soft mobility, electric and hybrid private and public, the networks of bicycle paths should be expanded and connected to those of cycle tourism,” bicycle tourism in the midst of nature, on the other hand, is increasing exponentially in recent years. Finally, there is no mention of tourism or related issues in the People’s Union program.

Thus we have seen how tourism with its many faces in various areas is treated very little by some and very much by others. A different vision on how to conceive this economic system that in Italy revolves around artistic and cultural beauties and then propagates on the richness of natural heritage and on that ’Italian style made of “good living” with fashion and food that therefore affects the economy of all Italian regions.

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