Tour guide law, AGTA: measure that will destroy the profession

The tour guide industry is in turmoil over the DDL on the tour guide profession, which has already prompted some criticism from ICOM, the top body representing museums. The category of tour guides has been without a law since 2013, and in those nine years, industry professionals observe, the regulatory vacuum has resulted in the unchecked growth of squatting, plummeting fees, and the blocking of new exams to enter the profession. Yet it is a figure that plays a fundamental role in Italian tourism and in the enhancement and promotion of our country and our heritage, both tangible and intangible: not only of cultural heritage, but also of traditions, craft activities and even food and wine, in other words, of everything that is the “brand” Italy and the famous “made in Italy.”

TheAGTA - Associazione Guide Turistiche Abilitate (Association of Licensed Tourist Guides), one of the main acronyms of the sector, has delivered proposed amendments to the bill and has already announced battle over the content of the law: in fact, AGTA, too, strongly criticizes the measure currently under consideration in Parliament. “We have been asking for a law on the profession for years: the regulatory vacuum is annihilating us,” AGTA explained in a note. “After 9 years of attempts and failures, all they have managed to produce this time as well is an insulting text that completely destroys the profession, or what is left of it. Yet the text had behind it 2 DLs, presented one by Senator Croatti and one by Senator Ripamonti, a year ago: in both there were multiple critical elements to overcome and change, but they also contained excellent insights and some well-written articles from which to start again. Instead of taking what was good in each of the two, the new unified text is completely different and, above all, incomplete.”

According to AGTA, there are five serious elements. The first is theincompleteness of the text, as it contains many references to future ministerial decrees. “It is a monolithic DDL,” says AGTA, “which defines nothing of the essential elements: the valid access titles, how the exams will be structured, who will organize them and where, the commissions, who will issue the licenses, the tasks of the Ministry and those of the Regions, and much more.” According to the association, such a text makes no sense: “the government doesn’t care if the content is at least decent, as long as on the surface the goal is achieved. Those who are experts in the field know that the planned Ministerial Decrees will never be there: it is not certain that they will be made, and as soon as they publish them they will be challenged by someone and annulled.”

The second problem is the elimination of "habilitation," downgraded to mere "eligibility." Regulated professions are in fact based on thestate exam for qualification to practice. “If the qualification is eliminated,” AGTA notes, “the tour guide, although regulated by a law, would in fact no longer have the right to be among the regulated professions and would pass among the non-reserved ones (recognized and listed with MISE, ex L. 4/2013). It is to be assumed that they want to liberalize our figure altogether, probably with the idea of making regional preparatory courses qualifying and giving access to the profession directly through certain qualifications.”

Closely related to the previous one is the third problem, namely the absence of a sanctioning system, because only regulated professions are reserved for those who are licensed and provide for the possibility of sanctions even on the basis of the penal code. “Absurdly, in the proposed DDL,” AGTA explains, “the only article on this issue legalizes squatting: instead of prohibiting those who are not licensed from practicing the profession, it only prohibits them from wearing a tour guide badge. This is like saying that anyone can improvise as a tour guide, as long as they don’t wear a tour guide badge around their neck. The squatters halfway around the world are already celebrating.”

Fourth is the access title. “We at AGTA,” the association continues, “have always believed that a master’s degree is necessary, to finally allow the Italian tourist-cultural offer to reach a quality standard commensurate with the richness of our heritage, adequate to the needs of an increasingly multifaceted tourist market, and able to stand up to competition from other European destinations, which have long since outclassed us. For years, however, the Conference of Regions and some of the relevant ministries have been trying to lower the bar; they have also challenged the three-year degree and even propose the high school diploma and the Higher Technical Education diploma. This time, too, one wonders: do they really believe that a bachelor’s degree is of no use to those who will have to illustrate the nation’s cultural heritage? Administrators and politicians must be convinced that the job of the guide is to point with the flag left and right and that over-educated guides are boring. Or they are being pressured by those who want tour guides to be limited to dealing with hit-and-run tourism and outside itineraries deemed easy and instead to have graduates from certain faculties give guided tours in museums, introducing a specious differentiation between tour guides and museum educators.”

Finally, the last critical element is, according to AGTA, the inadequacy of the regulations on guides from other countries: “the vagueness of the law ends up legalizing abusiveness, allowing thousands of unlicensed people, as long as they are foreigners, to conduct tours here for as long as they want and without paying taxes to the Italian state. Not to mention the problem of recognizing guides from other countries: already for years it has become the most popular method-even for a great many Italians-to obtain a driving license without waiting for a license. The European Policy offices are too concerned about not irritating the EU to do serious checks to avoid abuse and fakes. And those who find ways around the rules are rewarded.”

“If this DDL is not profoundly modified,” comments Isabella Ruggiero, AGTA president, “it will go on to destroy what is left of our profession, instead of enhancing and supporting it with a proper law. Who decided the contents of this text ? Minister Garavaglia? His legislative office? If we have to see our qualifications thrown to the scrap heap, we would like someone to have the courage to take responsibility for what is written there and explain to us why. For years we have been hearing politicians and administrators - ministers, legislative offices of ministries, Conference of Regions, Department of European Policies, Parliamentarians - passing the buck: ’the European Union requires it of us,’ ’the regions want it,’ ’the minister would like to but can’t.’ The field of guided tours is coveted by too many players, each with different and sometimes conflicting aims: Ministry of Tourism, Department of European Policies, Regions, international tour operators and web platforms, management companies for additional services, MIUR, MICs, museum directorates and superintendencies, cultural associations and cooperatives, even voluntary associations. Proof of this is that the reorganization of the profession was even included in the NRP, as if we were the bargaining chip to get funds from Europe. After 9 years, we are exhausted, and we no longer know whether those responsible for this outcome-and all previous failures-are guilty of sheer inability or the precise will to demolish a profession.”

Tour guide law, AGTA: measure that will destroy the profession

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