The Italian Regions together for a tourism promotion strategy. Coordinated campaign for Umbria in collaboration with Sviluppumbria

On the occasion of the 18th edition of "Fa' La Cosa Giusta", the fair on critical consumption and sustainable lifestyles, the Italian Regions met to present the "Discover the Italy you didn't know" project, which is part of the Ministry of Tourism's 2020 National Promotion Plan and whose central themes are Italian villages and landscapes, slow and active tourism.

A joint promotion strategy of the Italian regions, the result of a programme agreement between the Ministry of Tourism and the Commission for Tourism Policies - coordinated by the Abruzzo Region - of the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces, in collaboration with ENIT. A project that sees the involvement of the Emilia-Romagna, Umbria and Marche Regions as leaders, each for the enhancement of a specific theme, with Abruzzo responsible for aspects related to interoperability with the Tourism Digital Hub.

The campaign, coordinated by the Regions together with the Agencies of reference, was conceived by Dilemma with the media strategy of The Gate Communication and is being developed on an articulated mix of media including web, press and radio with the production of various materials, some more generic and others more specific, capable of involving the territorial realities of the whole of Italy and their tourism offer. In addition to this, a social strategy will also be implemented.

The campaign is coordinated for Umbria in collaboration with Sviluppumbria, and the regional agency will also provide the technical partnership during the implementation phase.

This real "Italian Journey" will run for five months to invite tourists to discover the beauty of our territory. A wide range of actions focused on "Italian villages and landscapes, identity, style, quality of life" (lead partner Emilia Romagna); "Slow tourism: hiking, food and wine, art, cultural heritage" (lead partner Umbria) and "Active tourism: biking, boating, Nordic walking and outdoor activities for summer and winter" (lead partner Marche) told in a capillary way in the portal viaggio.italia.it (soon to be online), a second level domain of the www.italia.it portal managed by ENIT, intended to showcase "The Italy you didn't know", as the joint tourism promotion campaign promises.

The Italian Regions are presenting themselves as a single entity, able to carry out a coordinated unitary promotion on the national market, on the strength of their knowledge of their respective territories, even in their hitherto lesser-known aspects, in parallel with the promotion of the Italian product carried out by ENIT on international markets: all in constant and close liaison with the Ministry of Tourism, which is thus exercising its coordinating functions. This is the first organic tourism project carried out jointly by all the institutions.

In the last two years we have learned an important lesson: the value of things. We have re-evaluated aspects of life that we almost took for granted: being together, travelling, learning. The same applies to our country.

Today, Italy is more desirable than ever. Precisely for this reason, it is the ideal time to reach visitors, both Italian and not, through a clear and evocative insight: "a lifetime would not be enough to discover all of Italy" and then through a concept that can stress this awareness: "Discover the Italy you didn't know". A small poetic licence aimed at communicating the message in a memorable and differentiating way. The structure of the storytelling is conceived starting from the same concept, shot in the form of a question, "Did you know that?", in order to introduce in an engaging way all the peculiarities of our country, even the less known ones.

The campaign aims to build awareness of the project by stimulating the target audience's curiosity, both through an unexpected call to action and by telling them about all the different tourism potentials. But to further strengthen the "Borghi" product other activities will be carried out in the coming months, starting with a national and interactive map with textual information and graphic materials of 1000 Italian villages and landscapes. A digital communication format will also be created with ambassadors, aimed at the main foreign markets and based on experiential tourism: 21 international "creators" (one for each region) will discover more than 60 Italian villages, experiencing them as if they were "locals", with the aim of narrating a 360° tourism offer made up of active, cultural, food and wine, slow, responsible and green tourism using only sustainable means of transport.

With regard to "slow tourism", the emphasis is on what walking is today: an ever-growing trend that fills the soul and allows people to explore certain places with awareness, finding authenticity and networking. Co-marketing actions will be created with companies linked to the world of food, focusing on the excellence of local food and wine. New training initiatives for tourism actors are in the pipeline. Walks and routes will be promoted with a careful eye on the target group, such as families. The aim is to promote the Cammini d'Italia product with a clear and unified line of communication but at the same time highlighting regional peculiarities. But Italy is also an opportunity to experience it actively. The idea is to propose it in an outdoor key in order to enhance some sports activities practicable at the level of nature/experiential tourism, highlighting the offer of all territories, and promoting, where possible, the enhancement of a homogeneous interregional network through routes as continuous as possible, which tend to create a unique journey.

The focus will be mainly on three products:

Sea routes. Enhancing Italy as seen from the sea through interregional nautical routes and itineraries, connecting various ports and tourist landings, to discover the cultural, tourist and food and wine excellence of the coastal hinterland. Nautical tourism finally becomes a tourist segment.

Bike routes. Systematising territorial and interregional routes with a series of services designed specifically for their needs.

Nordic Walking routes. Construction of a network of unique routes that touch all regions to be crossed in Nordic walking mode.

This "Italian Journey" is therefore a project that in the coming months will see its contents flow into the TDH - Tourism Digital Hub managed by ENIT. An action to enhance this national tool and which aims to significantly increase the fame of the Italy brand; becoming more and more attractive to all types of tourism markets. In addition, this will also make it possible to systematise in a single digital collection of the national offer the great wealth of work carried out to date by the individual Regions in relation to their own territories.