Italy: Social tourism a cure for ailing market

Founded on social values, promoting individual growth and carried out in an environmental friendly manner, social tourism is a favourite of NGOs, associations and parishes alike.

In Italy alone social tourism counts with 3 thousand holiday homes, 3500 staff clubs, more than 10 thousand local clubs, youth hostels and hundreds of travel agencies. The Italian Federation of Social Tourism gathers together 11 tourism and social development federations and represents more than three million citizens, including young and elderly people and families that travel and enjoy discovering nature, art and culture.

“There is a growing interest in social tourism” explains Buoni Vacanze Italia-Fitus director (Vouchers Holidays Italy –Italian Federation of Social Tourism) Massimo Abate. “We still do not know what consequences the decrease in demand for  traditional tourism will have on our sector. It will only be possible to understand  whether there has been a move towards social tourism or whether this has slowed down in a few months time”.

The identikit of a social tourist? Someone who doesn’t go on holiday in peak season or on bank holidays, to take advantage of off peak season low prices. But the social tourist is not just a cheapskate. Social tourists are joined by the desire to travel and to really get to know the places they visit, with an eye for alternatives to the typically commercial holiday. Social tourists opt for accommodation run by families or social cooperatives, where it is possible to get to know local traditions, recipes, history and folklore.

“There are more and more people living in economically instable situation and even real hardship. Social tourism makes it possible for every one to have holidays. As far as we are concerned, tourism is a right and as such it must be guaranteed to everybody”, adds Massimo Abate.

This is the context in which the Vouchers Holidays Italy project was born in 2001. “These vouchers work like food vouchers and can be spent straight away. They are granted according to a series of fixed criteria, including income and number of children. The suppliers? Both public authorities and private companies”, explains Massimo Abate. “The vouchers system is already active in various European countries, in France the national agency Cheques vacances was set up in 1982. In 2004 it issued vouchers worth 900 million euros for the benefit of 6.3 million people, 35% of these people would not otherwise have been able to go on holiday”. The Italian Federation of Social Tourism is even involving traditional tourism partners for this project.