"Florence? I know it, it's famous for sandwiches." The city on the return of mass tourism

“Florence? Yes I know it, it’s famous for sandwiches.” That’s what a tour guide was told by an Indian tourist who came under Brunelleschi’s dome as if it were a fast food stop to refresh himself. Telling us about it is Paola Migliosi, a Florentine and Italian president of Confguide, not hiding her disappointment and amazement.

We had contacted her to find out how she was seeing what is shaping up to be the spring/summer tourism recovery and she immediately pointed out that she is seeing the recovery as well but, she tells us, “on quality I have my doubts.” In addition to quantity we need to ask ourselves what kind of tourism we expect and would like. Undoubtedly the Indian tourist’s conviction is the result of a successful marketing strategy conducted in recent years by a well-known store behind Palazzo Vecchio that makes focaccia with typical Tuscan sausages and has expanded by opening other stores on the same street and in other European and American capitals after being included in the world’s best-selling tourist guide dedicated to Florence. In the age of Facebook, Tripadvisor and social networking, word of mouth goes global and has made her fortune.

Did she make it on the backs of her city? The debate is open, what is certain is that outclassing the cradle of the Renaissance in the collective imagination of a place albeit far away speaks volumes about how much we perhaps need to not take everything for granted in a country like ours that is rich in cultural heritage. Because tourism in Italy, first and foremost, is handmaiden to culture, not the other way around. The first travel motivation for people coming to our country is not food but art and culture. Which then certainly together with the other factors creates that Italian style that becomes a driving force for our economy. It is enough to consider the fact that in the expenses of a trip the overnight stay counts for 20 percent: it is not only the hotels that benefit then but the whole induced activity of services, catering and places of culture that make Italy Italy.

It is therefore necessary to pose the problem now that we are tacking around the pandemic buoy to resume the open sea of mass tourism (as the data of these weeks make us project). What is certain is that ’good Tuscan living’ with its typical products affects enormously in creating that ’Italian’ style for foreigners. Cultural heritage and Italian cuisine are inseparable for anyone looking at us from abroad.

Will cultural offerings evolve after these two years? “We don’t know, for the moment we can’t say,” Migliosi replies, “but for the moment it seems to me that there is the same imprinting as two years ago. And it doesn’t seem to me that there are the means to plan. We need to deseasonalize, dilute and move it to less traveled destinations as well. We need major events such as large exhibitions to attract new audiences, I am thinking for example of what the Uffizi and Palazzo Strozzi in Florence are doing. More value should be given to a contemporary art museum like the Pecci in Prato and others like it. Because tourism will otherwise suffocate art cities. We should talk about beauty, not eating.”

On the other hand, regarding Mayor Nardella’s idea of wanting to ask tourists for a donation when they enter the center, President Migliosi pointed out in an interview with La Nazione how “in the city for now there are mostly Italians and Europeans, there is a lack of internationals who are the ones with a greater capacity to spend, this is not the time to ask visitors for further contributions. To protect the beauty of the city, it would be necessary to create more opportunities for dialogue and confrontation between those who govern and those who work, with us operators who know who our tourists are.” Unfortunately, emphasizes Migliosi , “we are back to the pre-covid situation. We have been talking about the sustainability of the historic heart for years, but at the moment no solution has been found.”

Professor Sergio Givone, philosopher and former councilor for culture of the City of Florence, interviewed by the Florentine press, where there has long been a heated debate about how to preserve the value and identity of a city by reconciling it with maximum tourism, said (in an interview with Repubblica Firenze) how “Florence’s real problem is to become attractive for something other than so-called food, albeit quality food.”

The municipality tried to limit the proliferation of food-related establishments and businesses with a three-year freeze, which is being renewed for another three this year, on the issuance of such licenses as bars, restaurants and grocery stores whose demand in the historic center was attracted by the presence of tourists. But for the philosopher, this is not enough and he even goes so far as to say that “The real challenge would be to change the reasons why people visit Florence, and to invest in this in the long run. It may well be fine for me to be offered a sandwich in an interesting place that perhaps has shelves of books or cultural events, as is now often the case, but this is camouflage. The underlying problem is that people continue to come to Florence with the idea of first and foremost fulfilling the need to eat well, as if this city has nothing else to offer.”

And in another interview, with Corriere Fiorentino, he explained how in his opinion “tourists want what we induce them to want to offer,” and commenting on the many signs with pictures of food and menus of bars and restaurants next to the entrances of churches with works of art inside them he says that “wanting to offer oneself like this, with this image of oneself to tourists” is an offering oneself “a little bit whorish and a little bit trivial as a place where above all one eats.”

After two years of zero tourism, therefore, the administrators of our cities and the whole system of culture and tourism are called upon to rethink the approach with which we welcome tourists, trying to put a brake on massive tourism concentrated in a few square kilometers (such as Rome, Florence, Venice) in order to decongest and not distort the identity of our cities and the cultural message they represent. Measures such as stopping the licensing of certain businesses, such as those related to food, that were engulfing the commercial fabric of historic centers, and hypotheses such as closed numbers or requiring a donation from tourists to share in the costs of maintaining the cities they visit, are concrete proposals that want to move in this direction. There is still a lot of work to be done, and there is no already written solution, but surely all the actors in the tourism system will have to compete for this result.

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