The intent behind the project is to overcome fragmentation that affects experiential tourism in Italy, replicating a high quality tourism model throughout Italy and defining a sustainable return to tourism. Investments by CDP Capital Venture and SMP Holding gave a sum of 5.5 million to the initiative, enabling the organization to bring their skills to all the main Italian destinations, with a particular focus on the regions of Southern Italy through an acquisition plan of small local entities operating in experiential tourism which will be enhanced with new jobs created and investments in technology and innovation.
Their passion for unique experiences and indelible memories for tourists is what drives the project, with the business sector in which the new company operates reaching a global market share of between 15 and 20% of the entire travel sector. Globally, the demand for experiential tourist services is constantly growing and TAA (tours, activities and attractions) represents the third most important market today (after flights and hotels).
Tourists will be offered the opportunity to experience their stay in Italy by immersing themselves in the local culture through deeply engaging and memorable experiences that are professionally created and managed with the highest level of customer care. Quality experiential service such as excursions aboard typical vehicles, visits to exclusive sites, local cooking schools and more will be marketed through digital channels, creating, planning, managing and selling a complete travel itinerary to be merged into a single platform, thus facilitating the experience of customer purchase and at the same time optimizing the work of operators. The experience market is growing rapidly, as confirmed by the recent data on Arival’s US tourism, with 71% of active US travellers planning to book at least one tour or experience during their next trip in 2022, with the figure having been at 47% in 2019.
Saverio Castilletti, President of To Italy Group details
“The tourism sector was one of the sectors most impacted by the effects of the pandemic. After two years of great difficulty, we have put together different and complementary skills by combining our groups with the aim of becoming the reference point for experiential tourism in Italy. Today, tourists are increasingly ‘digital’ and when planning their itineraries, the web gives them access to a large amount of information on places to visit; the challenge then shifts to making visitors aware of the culture and typical experiences of our country. Experiential tourism is the answer to the search for details that new visitors to a city recognize from a film or song: the modern tourist leaves home with mainly unconscious ideas associated with that place, belonging to third party experiences but which often become the real reason behind the trip”.
Luca Perfetto, CEO of To Italy added
"This project focuses on the concept of quality, which means professional but authentic offering that is above all ‘sustainable’, ie aware of all the effects of tourism on the territory and therefore aimed at enhancing and not exploiting our culture and our socio-cultural fabric. We are in a new phase where it’s essential to generate a form of tourism that is less impactful and which allows our historic centres to remain alive and inhabited while they are visited and admired, transmitting our culture without distorting it or adapting it to visitor's requests…The goal is better planning of flows, working in terms of the well-being of destinations, and quality and respect for local cultures to encourage tourism that brings positive effects to all parties involved”.
