The Polo of Tourism of the Italian State Railways System FS Group dedicated itself to the development of tourism in Italy, as disclosed to the press in Rome.
A presentation took place at the Roma Tiburtina, a second major railway station in the city, in the presence of Gian Marco Centinaio, Minister of Agricultural, Food, Forestry and Tourism Policies; Danilo Toninelli, Minister of Infrastructure and Transport; and Gianfranco Battisti, CEO of the Italian FS Group, report agencies.
The FS Group’s industrial plan expects to intercept 20 million additional tourists by 2023 and the Tourism Development Hub will respond to the growing demand for tourism in Italy, which is increasingly characterized by different mobility and travel planning needs.
Polo’s activities will concern 8 areas of action: commercial offer, inter-modality, historic trains, sweet tourism, experience tourism, culture and music, real estate assets, and digital infrastructure.
The actions planned for the FS Group will be dedicated to Italian and foreign tourists who, thanks to a multimodal offer, will have a system of tailor-made, integrated, digital, and sustainable products and services to reach the coast resorts, mountain, and art cities in Italy.
According to forecasts in 2030, travelers in the world will reach 2 billion, from over 1.4 billion today. Most of these tourists are foreseen to choose Italy with growth inflows expected especially from Asia.
Italy is at present fifth in the world for number of tourists with about 60 million international arrivals in 2018 and a forecast of about 75 million arrival from abroad in 2023. At the national level, tourism consumption is equal to over 112 billion euros, of which about 13 billion are linked to transport services (11% of domestic tourism consumption). Furthermore, 30% of the people who travel with FS do it for tourism and leisure, with a 20% increase in international customers in 2019 compared to 2018.
In line with the 2019-2023 Business Plan, whose objective is to intercept 20 million more tourists starting from the current 100 million – said the director of FS Group, Gianfranco Battisti, FS has launched a series of actions for the redistribution of tourism flows and for better accessibility to the cities of art, sea, and mountains vacation spots, enhancing the image and the Italian cultural and landscape heritage, also in view of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.
“To meet the growing demand for tourism and the renewed mobility needs of people – shorter stays throughout the year and travel planning, organized increasingly autonomously and with digital tools,” added Battisti, “the FS Group is proposing as a reference point for the national tourist ecosystem, an actor able to facilitate the connections between the 3 access doors of the country (airports, stations, ports) and to support the economic growth of the Italian system.”
