Italy will be top destination again, says minister

Berlin - "Italy is a great power in tourism and will excel again on the international market," said Italy's Minister for Cultural Heritage and Tourism at the Internationale Tourismus-Boerse in Berlin. He was at the leading global trade show to present, with Enit, the country's Strategic Tourism Plan for 2017-22. Dario Franceschini said: "The real challenge has just begun. We are facing increasingly fierce competitors who weren't even in the market 20 years ago - including the Arab Emirates - and we have to deal with a greatly increased number of travellers: millions of people who we need to guide and encourage with our food and wine, culture and landscapes." He said the key words of the plan are "experience" and "decentralisation".

Tourism accounts for 10.2% of GDP and 11.6% of employment in Italy, confirming the country as Europe's top tourist destination, among Schengen countries, by number of visitors from outside the EU. Figures published by Enit, the Italian tourism agency, put the degree of appreciation among foreign visitors at 82.4%. The figure is confirmed by social media where the country turns out to be the most photographed country in the world on Instagram, with 54.4 million images tagged with the #Italy hashtag.

Enit director Fabio Lazzerini said: "We are the country that travellers from China, the USA, Canada, Australia and Japan want to visit above all others." The minister said Italy now needs to direct travellers to less well-known destinations. "It is true that Italy has a considerable cultural heritage that is spread across the whole country, it is recognised globally for its fashion, cooking, design and lifestyle. This makes us one of the most desirable tourist destinations, a huge potential that must and can be exploited through a shared promotion of the country, as demonstrated by the pavilion set up here by Enit and the regions, with a vision that allows all the organisations to present themselves under the overarching symbol of Italy."