Travelling has always meant more than a personal gift. More than anything else, it’s a tribute to the destination. From the moment when you book, a deep love develops between the traveller and the journey’s end. These adren- aline-fuelled days involve butterflies in the stomach as future visitors decide the why-when-how of their travel plans. Many of today’s tourists are fully independent. They plan and book their vacations using a whole host of tools, from the traditional to the various established digital platforms. Contemporary travellers choose the experiences they crave and tailor them according to their personal tastes. The purpose of DestinationFlorence.com is to provide travellers with everything they need to make informed choices. It’s a way of ensuring that Florence ticks all the boxes while focusing on sustainable tourism in the future.
DestinationFlorence.com puts Florence first
DestinationFlorence.com was created in 2017 in partnership with Florence City Council. It is the only official e-commerce that encompasses the entirety of what Florence has to offer: hotels, restaurants, exhibitions, museums, tours and experiences. It has a unique shopping cart, which allows travellers to create their own packages independently and purchase them in a single transaction. Plus, the prices you find on Destination Florence are market prices, which means visitors to the city never spend more than they should. The products and services sold on DestinationFlorence. com are all certified and supplied by a network of 300-plus local, specialized and qualified operators. We choose our partners according to a code of ethics that reflects the vision of Florence that we want to offer: absolute respect for the law; local suppliers only; quality standards met; and in-depth knowledge of the local area. This means that quality is always guaranteed whenever travellers book a hotel or purchase a tour on DestinationFlorence.com.
5 reasons to use DestinationFlorence.com
DestinationFlorence.com is all about local, ethical and sustainable travel.
1/ We support Florence and local businesses.
2/ We care about Florence as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
3/ We promote the whole of Florence and its surroundings, treating the main attractions and little-known gems with the same respect.
4/ Our official partnership with the city council means that you can rely on the quality of the information and services.
5/ Selling everything on a single platform, which is simple, fast and convenient, means that the money goes straight from our official platform to the operators, hence helping Florence and the local economy.
“In the last few years, we have worked hard to promote tourism that is more sustainable and respectful. Florence is a place of extraordinary beauty, which is precisely why the number of tourists has increased, including mass tourism in which inattentive visitors have taken advantage of the city without fully experiencing or respecting it. Sustainable tourism, which we encourage with strategic partners like Destination Florence, is attentive to our community and the city’s heritage. This is a more curious form of tourism that does not stop with the better-known attractions, but pushes beyond the boundaries of the historic center. These travelers buy from the botteghe of our craftspeople and explore established stores as well as everything that the Made in Florence culture has to offer. This tourism stays longer in the city and ventures out to the metropolitan area, for the leafy suburbs in search of lesser-known sights. For this reason, as the city councillor for tourism, last year we launched a publicity campaign aimed at creating an alliance between the City of Florence, tour guides and tour operators to “relaunch sustainable tourism in the city” through awarding the “Feel Florence!” mark of quality to everyone who works according to certain standards. In addition to helping us combat unregulated activity, a phe- nomenon that “damages” citizens, visitors and, more generally, the image of our city, the Feel Florence recognition allows us to develop a stronger bond between public and private sectors, sharing a vision focused on the diversification of tourism experiences, decentralizing visitor flows, informed tourism that respects the city and its residents, and protects jobs. The tour guides and tour operators who obtain this stamp, as well as being promoted on the Feel Florence website (www.feelflorence.it), can make the most of a set of services and take part in the annual Quality Tourism Awards, promoted by our partner Destination Florence Convention & Visitors Bureau. All these actions are being implemented so that we can welcome back everyone who chooses Florence for their next journey in the best and most sustainable ways.”
-Cecilia del Re city councillor for tourism DestinationFlorence.com.
