Franceschini: "closed cultural places are sad, but then there will be season of growth"

It is sad to see cultural venues closed, but once the pandemic is over there will be a season of strong growth according to Cultural Heritage Minister Dario Franceschini. He said this this morning on the sidelines of the presentation of Federculture’s 2020 Report.

“Every crisis brings positive consequences,” the minister said. “It has been understood to the full, by all policy makers, even those furthest from culture by commitment, by work or by choice, how important investment in culture is in Italy, how Italy’s image is linked to its cultural offerings, and how sad our cities with closed cultural venues are.” Franceschini said that the ministry’s response has been very important: “we have arrived at 9 billion resources to deal with the emergency, the sector has had social shock absorbers that it has never had, the redundancy fund that there has never been in the sector, the 600 euros for seasonal and intermittent workers: these are measures that have made it possible to survey the variety of labor contracts, to understand the importance also numerically of the sector, to know the turnovers and the number of companies. The many specific emergency interventions have therefore allowed us to have a map of the difficulties but also to make us realize the enormity of the sector.”

Important indications also emerged from the interventions, according to Franceschini, for example the opportunity to invest in online: “the enormous potential of the online culture offer was discovered,” Franceschini said. “Now almost everything has been free because we have filled the gaps of closed cinemas, theaters, exhibitions and museums, but in prospect online will become a very important supplementary offer. There are many important things that can stay.”

“As soon as the pandemic ends,” the minister concluded, “there will be a very strong restart of cultural consumption (we have already seen it for books), and people will want to experience beauty and come to Italy. But now we have to help businesses and workers in the sector to cross the desert knowing that then there will be a season of great growth and we will have to guide it intelligently.”

Franceschini: "closed cultural places are sad, but then there will be season of growth"

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