The presentation of the first survey by the Wine Tourism Movement and the CESEO Wine and Oil Tourism Study Centre of the LUMSA University , the new observatory inaugurated on this occasion, took place in Rome, at Palazzo Giustiniani, the seat of the Presidency of the Senate. The event, moderated by Massimiliano Ossini, saw the participation of Anna Isabella Squarzina (president of the Degree Course in Linguistic and Cultural Mediation at LUMSA University), Donatella Cinelli Colombini ( director of CESEO), Violante Gardini Cinelli Colombini (national president of the Wine Tourism Movement), Antonello Maruotti ( full professor of Statistics at LUMSA University), Francesco Bonini (rector of LUMSA University) and Dario Stefàno (president of CESEO).
"The Study Center is a great innovation but it is also a successful bet because it rewards an investment, shared with the LUMSA University, far-sighted and ambitious, which focuses on a sector, that of wine tourism - and oil tourism - underlined the president of the Center Dario Stefàno - which has now become a true driver of development of the international tourist offer. When we talk about wine tourism we are referring to a sector in constant growth, with an annual increase of 13% on a global scale, as reported by the IMF (International Monetary Fund), and which finds in Italy the possibility of its maximum expression on a global level. This protagonism, however, requires qualified analysis support, a research and investigation point as CESEO claims and intends to be, which traces guidelines capable of being a compass towards sustainable and possibly homogeneous growth of the territories and their actors; a stimulus for government policies and, at the same time, a driver for preparing training programs, capable of restoring figures and skills that are more necessary than ever for the sector".
The survey Wine tourism: between new challenges and opportunities , edited by Antonello Maruotti with the collaboration of Pierfrancesco Alaimo Di Loro, Martìn Farfan and Federico Marsilii, was developed on a representative sample of 237 wineries that are members of the Wine Tourism Movement , the first organization to join the Study Center with full sharing of the objectives.
“The study represents an in-depth snapshot of the activity of the Movement's wineries, an increasingly diversified and dynamic reality with a focus on sustainability - explained Violante Gardini Cinelli Colombini, president of the Movimento Turismo del Vino - We involved our companies right from the start because we strongly believe in the potential of the Study Center in conducting highly scientifically rigorous research aimed at enhancing the peculiarities of the sector and, at the same time, at the systematic analysis of critical issues and opportunities. The survey will allow us to develop training courses for tourist wineries, support regional presidents with updated and reliable data on the sector, and encourage MTV members to improve their offerings, consolidating their leading role in Italian wine tourism.”
The identikit of the wineries, the communication channels, the hospitality and the role of artificial intelligence (AI) : these are the four macro categories analyzed in the study that focuses on some of the most central themes for the sector, such as the integration of complementary activities to the experience in the winery, the birth of new professional figures and digitalization . The first evidence confirms wine tourism as a healthy and increasingly attractive sector : 53% of the sample recorded an increase in turnover and, among these, 1 in 4 (24%), the growth was even double digit.
Despite this decidedly positive trend, the sector seems threatened by a constant increase in costs reported by 81% of the wineries: increases that erode profit margins and that in many cases are particularly significant (29% recorded a growth of between 5% and 10%, 16% reported an increase of between 10% and 25%, and a significant 8% declared an increase of more than 25%) . A particularly critical scenario especially for small companies that represent a large part of the sample ( 64% micro-enterprises, 31% small businesses ). It should also be remembered that only 9% of the wineries exceed 2 million in annual turnover.
Another crucial element of the survey concerned the role of professionalization and skills within companies: currently only 38% of tourist wineries have staff with specific skills in Wine Hospitality . In the others, it is often the owner who receives visitors (63%) or occasionally employees who deal with sales, communication or other company personnel are directed towards reception. On the other hand, in most cases, as seen above, economic flows and turnover do not allow for investment in qualified personnel. But hospitality in the vineyard and cellar is a much more complex format and if the road to equipping cellars with specific staff is at the beginning, we are very far ahead on equally decisive aspects.
Hospitality is in fact the central theme for an Association like the Movimento Turismo del Vino which, for over thirty years, has been rewriting the way of doing wine tourism by making the experience in the cellar more accessible and inclusive. A direction demonstrated by the increasingly high level of hospitality standards , both at a structural level, in reference to the presence of parking lots, equipped tasting rooms, rest areas for campers and accessible routes for people with motor difficulties, but also at the level of complementary activities offered, in particular those carried out outdoors. The survey shows, in fact, that the landscape is one of the main attractions both for the initiatives proposed (33% of the cellars organize picnics in the vineyard, 30% walks in the vineyard), but also at an environmental level (43% of the companies are organic, 38% respect the standards of sustainable agriculture); it should be noted that these percentages are clearly higher than those for the entire Italian Agricultural Area (SAU) where organic stands at 19.8% (source: Fondazione Metes). It is also worth noting that 26% of the wineries interviewed provide charging stations for electric cars.
