Essay on the Analysis of the Tourism Strategy in Italy

Italy in the recent past has been one of the leading nations in tourism around the globe. It is considered a destination of tourists who seek a luxurious lifestyle and are looking for a nation rich in cultural heritage (Angeloni, 2017). Thus, these two reasons have made the country to be the most desired destination. Ideally, the destination competitiveness theory confirms that historical culture and artistic attractions are necessary when creating a unique tourist attraction. Italy has all these thus fit perfectly in the destination competitive theories. One thing that has made this country flourish in tourism is its tourism strategies. The country’s strategic national plan on tourism has its roots in 2013. Thus, this paper analyzes the tourism strategy of Italy.

Before looking at the plan, rather than the nation’s strategies, it is essential to look at the underlying problems that have hindered tourism in the nation. Ideally, these are the same problems that led to the formulation of tourism strategies. Some of these problems include governance issues, limited employment, and even insufficient infrastructure in the tourism sector (Angeloni, 2017). Thus, in analyzing the tourism strategy in Italy, it is essential to view if all these strategies have been met.

The national strategic plan of Italy came up as a response to the essentiality of the tourism sector in the country. As introduced above, the realization of this criticality came up in January 2013, which led to drawing the framework that the country would use to improve and safeguard tourists in the nation. It ought to be noted that this was the first time in the nation’s history that the Italian government had documented its plan for the nation concerning tourism. The document was to curb the loss of competitiveness in the tourist industry in the country. Notably, this strategic plan for the nation was named “Italian Tourism 2020” (IMF, 2017).

One of the strategies was to give back the stewardship to Italy in the tourism sector. In order to do so, the government has to create jobs in this industry and attract attention to the tourists that they would be satisfied and enjoy the services in Italy when they visit this destination as tourists. These plans are to be revised after every two years to incorporate the changes in the contemporary world as per the assessments done. The first phase, rather than the action, is to create more than 500 000 new jobs, which will raise the total GDP to be £30 billion (Ana, 2018). In a government audit, this will lead to procrastination that Italy will regain and even surpass its original market shares in the industry. Analytically, this plan has identified about nine domains that it terms as critical gaps. These gaps include the communication and promotion, governance, channels or sales, range of products, training and skills, transportation and infrastructure, investments, regional authorities, central government, decision-making fragmentation, and hospitality. Thus, it may be assertive from this data that this plan aims to give the tourism sector a holistic approach to the problems in the industry.

The plan proposes about 61 healing actions that ought to be done to the tourism sector. Of the 61 actions termed concrete, 7 schools of thought emerged, tackling these healing activities philosophically (Ana, 2018). While using other country’s flourishing tourism plans as a benchmark, Italy was able to come up with even better plans. For instance, the Italian hotels’ sizes were considered small when benchmarked with those in Spain and France. Moreover, the average bed capacity of hotels in Italy is small compared to those in France and Spain.

It should be noted that these two, Spain and France, are the direct competitors of Italy. Thus, using this data, Italy developed a better strategy that focused on more employments in this industry and regaining its leadership in tourism. Evaluative data points result from these strategies to yield the professionalism needed in producing high-quality tourism services.

The table below shows part of the actions that the government outlined to help revive the tourism industry.

In conclusion, Italy is considered a home of history and cultural attraction. However, an analysis of the tourism policies and strategy locate several problems on the modernization of the tourism facilities and poor governance. This led to the formulation of about 61 actions that ought to be followed and philosophically employed to help the country regain its original global market. With the proposal to employ more than 500 000 employees, the industry is set to expand and face the existing challenges. Moreover, the country’s plan to revise these plans every two years assures the industry to incorporate recent changes.

References

Ana, M. I. (2018). The tourism industry in the new member states. Key countries and destinations. Management & Marketing. Challenges for the Knowledge Society, 13(1), 812-830. https://sciendo.com/pdf/10.2478/mmcks-2018-0007

Angeloni, S. (2017). The Strategic Plan for tourism development in Italy. https://air.unimi.it/handle/2434/812869

IMF. (2017) Italy: Core Statistical Indicators. https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/002/2005/044/article-A002-en.xml