Antonio Guarini
Stakeholder’s point of view: interview with Antonio Guarini, Director of AIA – RIMINI (Associazione Italiana Albergatori – Rimini / Italian Hoteliers Association – Rimini)
According to your opinion, a cluster needs to be formally recognized?
Absolutely yes. The main aim of a cluster is to increase tourist presences and flows in a single territory by means of specific actions intended to improve tourist awareness and the capacity to combine tourism, production and culture. These single specific sectors can be better enhanced in a context that foresees a unique and integrated tourist offer based strongly on the overall identity of a certain territory.
Which are the main obstacles hindering clustering? What are the main success achieved?
Ensuring that the various sectors share a dialogue and are able to work synergistically is a difficult and complex task. But linking different sectors in a network allows an economy of the territory to be created, and consequently it becomes easier to develop the promotion of the territory.
How strong is creative and cultural industry in your region? How would you define it?
The Emilia Romagna region boasts a first-rate cultural heritage that derives from a history of great traditions. It’s no mere coincidence that the city of Ravenna, with its excellent historical and artistic attractions, is a candidate to be a 2019 European City of Culture. The creativity industry can develop around this, and it’s also up to the imagination of the single private players, companies and production activities of the territory to be able to enter the game by presenting the value of this cultural heritage, investing in projects to enhance and regenerate its value.
How strong is tourism in your region and what development potentials can you see?
We’re quite probably the capital of European tourism. For over 50 years our 70 km of coast have seen millions of presences, thanks to our culture of hospitality that distinguishes at a European and worldwide level. All this is supported by an unparalleled system of hospitality structures, with thousands of excellently equipped hotels and an integrated offer that focuses strongly on the sectors of seaside leisure, spas, theme parks, fine food and wine, and last but not least, cycling holidays, which have grown with particularly important numbers in recent years.
In your opinion, are enterprises from the productive sector (industry) linked with the culture? Are donations to cultural activities from the private sector strongly developed (mecenate)?
They are not sufficiently integrated in this rather difficult moment of our country’s economy. This prevents the private sector of enterprises from interacting with the world of culture. At the same time, the public sector is also unable to find the necessary resources to safeguard the cultural wealth of our territory.
Do you think Private public partnership could be a good tool to promote an integrated tourism promotion of the territory?
It’s fundamental for public and private to move forward together, because only in this way is it possible to integrate resources, and therefore to be able to present the territory on the tourism market, promoting a unified and integrated offer that emphasizes the value of the complexity of our territory.
What do you expect from the CMC project?
CMC isn’t just the name of an ambitious project. It also represents an important challenge for the concrete achievement of objectives of development by means of the promotion of integrated segments, capable of presenting a multiple offer of cultural and tourist attractions and local products. Facilitating links between art, culture, tourism and industry makes it possible to promote a unique tourist offer that highlights the overall identity of a specific territory. We are confident that this project could be very feasible in our region.