A trip to Italy: engine of knowledge and development thanks to the values of cultural and industrial tourism
Any trip to Italy is a ritual, of education and knowledge, where one re-reads history and imagines the future. The proof lies in the pages of the Grand Tour by Goethe, Houël, Tocqueville, and Dumas, as well as in the more recent writings of Alberto Arbasino in the many editions of “Fratelli d’Italia”. But also in the exemplary journalistic investigations of the 1950s and 1960s signed by Mario Soldati for RAI, Guido Piovene for ‘Corriere della Sera’ and Giorgio Bocca for ‘Il Giorno’. Or in that unique collective adventure of twenty photographers coordinated by Luigi Ghirri, who set out in 1984—exactly forty years ago—to capture the landscape of a country in transition (“We journeyed with Ghirri through everyday Italy to recognise as liveable those inhabited places that were neglected and ignored,” recalls one of the participants, Vittore Fossati, in La Repubblica, 10 November).
The portrait that emerges, with all the natural differences in terms of the authors’ culture and style, is that of a country full of contrasts and controversial aspects, with a landscape characterised by breathtaking beauty but also marked by lacerating devastation. And with a particular ability to hold together culture and enterprise, local selfishness and solidarity, widespread prosperity and intolerable poverty, both economic and spiritual.
A robust social capital nonetheless. The moving portrait of an extraordinary humanity.
The cliché of Italy as an ‘open-air museum’ does not do justice to this special geographical, cultural and economic condition. And the great archaeologist and art historian Andrea Carandini is right when he criticises that definition (Corriere della Sera, 7 November) and explains that the country is rather ‘an enormous open-air context, one of the most beautiful in the world’. The context of different interventions, parts of a story to be told. In its many aspects. ‘Our cities,’ insists Carandini, addressing Culture Minister Giuli, ‘are living contexts. Each one deserves a museum of its own to tell its story. We start with Rome and Naples’.
Here’s the deal. For some time now, we have been considering the economic value of culture, the links between cultural heritage and tourist appeal, and the special characteristics that bind territories to businesses. And now is the perfect time—after this summer’s debates on overtourism, the transformations of major art cities, and the anxious anticipation of 35 million pilgrims in Rome for the Jubilee—to reflect on the characteristics of the Italian landscape, so heavily shaped by the humans who inhabit it yet so rich and varied. It is also an opportunity to consider the values of business culture as a form of sustainable culture, both environmentally and socially, and as a driver of balanced development.
A culture that is worth a considerable share of our GDP but also and above all has a positive impact on the values of the Bes, the ‘fair and sustainable well-being’ indicator developed by ISTAT to quantify the value of the quality of life (on which knowledge, education, health, and positive social relations weigh).
The ‘I am Culture’ Report put together by Symbola, Unioncamere, Centro Studi Tagliacarne and Deloitte calculates that the cultural and creative production system will have an added value of 104.3 billion euro in 2023 (up 5.5% on the previous year) and employ 1.5 million people. With a multiplier of 1.8 in different economic sectors, such as transport and tourism, another 192.6 billion is generated. The total, between direct cultural wealth and indirect wealth, comes to 296.9 billion. 15.8% of the Italian GDP.
According to Banca Ifis, in its recent study on the Economy of Beauty, art and culture are strategic assets for competitiveness. There are 732 companies in the sector and they generate 192 billion in annual revenues.
However one calculates the value of the cultural and artistic industry (which, according to Symbola, also includes the gaming industry), its impact on national wealth is significant. And the relationship with the appeal of the country system as a whole is highly respectable.
But let’s go back and focus specifically on tourism. ‘In the last ten years, the holiday motivation linked to the enjoyment of cultural heritage rose from seventh to first place, appealing above all to the international tourist demand, which is 55%, and to the more upwardly mobile,’ says Loretta Credaro, president of Isnart, the National Institute for Tourism Research (Il Messaggero, 7 November). A tourism that is attentive to the local areas that host it, to experiences, including cultural ones, linked to art, but also to cuisine, wine, design, fashion and other made-in-Italy products. And sensitive to the human and social aspects of the quality of hospitality.
In this context, the idea of industrial tourism moves forward as part of the broader chapter of cultural tourism, leveraging company museums and corporate historical archives, gathered under Museimpresa (with 150 members, including large, medium, and small enterprises, as well as institutional supporters, such as the historical archives of the Cavalieri del Lavoro). Business history. Not only, and not so much, as pride in a past of ingenuity, commitment, work, and creativity. But above all, as a competitive asset, a lever of identity to establish oneself in highly selective international markets, and as a stimulus for innovation.
In times of change and great transitions, in fact, working on the memory of our past and on the valorisation of Italy’s enormous cultural and industrial heritage is a way of testifying that we are part of an active citizenship that allows us to think about the quality of development and its inclusiveness. Italian savoir-faire is a distinctive feature, an ethical value of work on which it is worth focusing.
Our company museums and business archives, in fact, contain the history of women and men who, in the face of the challenges of changing times and even in conditions of great difficulty, provided a productive and commercial response that is still relevant today, as demonstrated by the data showing a strong and robust export performance. These testimonies can also serve as an element of attraction and inspiration for young people, helping them understand how our companies are the ideal environments to realise their projects, assert their initiative, and unleash their creativity.
If tourism stimulates knowledge, industrial tourism in the made-in-Italy territories can also play an important role for companies perennially in search of quality people.
Data from a survey conducted by Nomisma for Museimpresa documents that almost 6 million Italians (5.8 million, to be exact) have visited a business museum, a company history archive or a place of industrial archaeology in the last four years. They were motivated by a desire to better understand what lies behind the iconic objects of the finest Italian products, to learn about the history of the companies and the related art and design, to become familiar with the relationships between industries and territories. They were young (most are between 30 and 44 years old), highly educated, and came mainly from the northern regions. And they deemed the experience ‘educational and formative’. Among the 34 million Italians who, in the last four years, have taken a trip or at least a short excursion, 17% have already visited a company museum, and an additional 21% would gladly go. An interesting opportunity to develop ‘industrial tourism’, therefore. And a more stimulating perspective than ever before for those who want to learn about the economic history, the revitalisation of the business culture, and foster a more widespread and responsible understanding of the role of our manufacturing companies and services in improving the economic development of our country.
The most popular museums? The Ferrari Museum in Maranello, followed by the Crespi d’Adda Village in the province of Bergamo, the Alfa Romeo Historical Museum in Arese, the Lavazza Museum in Turin and the Olivetti Historical Archive in Ivrea. There is plenty of potential to expand and promote other opportunities throughout Italy.
The industrial landscape and the cultural landscape are, in short, parts of the same environment. And with environmental and social care and respect, they can act as an ever stronger driver of development. Of widespread wealth. Of good economy.
(photo: Getty Images)
Any trip to Italy is a ritual, of education and knowledge, where one re-reads history and imagines the future. The proof lies in the pages of the Grand Tour by Goethe, Houël, Tocqueville, and Dumas, as well as in the more recent writings of Alberto Arbasino in the many editions of “Fratelli d’Italia”. But also in the exemplary journalistic investigations of the 1950s and 1960s signed by Mario Soldati for RAI, Guido Piovene for ‘Corriere della Sera’ and Giorgio Bocca for ‘Il Giorno’. Or in that unique collective adventure of twenty photographers coordinated by Luigi Ghirri, who set out in 1984—exactly forty years ago—to capture the landscape of a country in transition (“We journeyed with Ghirri through everyday Italy to recognise as liveable those inhabited places that were neglected and ignored,” recalls one of the participants, Vittore Fossati, in La Repubblica, 10 November).
The portrait that emerges, with all the natural differences in terms of the authors’ culture and style, is that of a country full of contrasts and controversial aspects, with a landscape characterised by breathtaking beauty but also marked by lacerating devastation. And with a particular ability to hold together culture and enterprise, local selfishness and solidarity, widespread prosperity and intolerable poverty, both economic and spiritual.
A robust social capital nonetheless. The moving portrait of an extraordinary humanity.
The cliché of Italy as an ‘open-air museum’ does not do justice to this special geographical, cultural and economic condition. And the great archaeologist and art historian Andrea Carandini is right when he criticises that definition (Corriere della Sera, 7 November) and explains that the country is rather ‘an enormous open-air context, one of the most beautiful in the world’. The context of different interventions, parts of a story to be told. In its many aspects. ‘Our cities,’ insists Carandini, addressing Culture Minister Giuli, ‘are living contexts. Each one deserves a museum of its own to tell its story. We start with Rome and Naples’.
Here’s the deal. For some time now, we have been considering the economic value of culture, the links between cultural heritage and tourist appeal, and the special characteristics that bind territories to businesses. And now is the perfect time—after this summer’s debates on overtourism, the transformations of major art cities, and the anxious anticipation of 35 million pilgrims in Rome for the Jubilee—to reflect on the characteristics of the Italian landscape, so heavily shaped by the humans who inhabit it yet so rich and varied. It is also an opportunity to consider the values of business culture as a form of sustainable culture, both environmentally and socially, and as a driver of balanced development.
A culture that is worth a considerable share of our GDP but also and above all has a positive impact on the values of the Bes, the ‘fair and sustainable well-being’ indicator developed by ISTAT to quantify the value of the quality of life (on which knowledge, education, health, and positive social relations weigh).
The ‘I am Culture’ Report put together by Symbola, Unioncamere, Centro Studi Tagliacarne and Deloitte calculates that the cultural and creative production system will have an added value of 104.3 billion euro in 2023 (up 5.5% on the previous year) and employ 1.5 million people. With a multiplier of 1.8 in different economic sectors, such as transport and tourism, another 192.6 billion is generated. The total, between direct cultural wealth and indirect wealth, comes to 296.9 billion. 15.8% of the Italian GDP.
According to Banca Ifis, in its recent study on the Economy of Beauty, art and culture are strategic assets for competitiveness. There are 732 companies in the sector and they generate 192 billion in annual revenues.
However one calculates the value of the cultural and artistic industry (which, according to Symbola, also includes the gaming industry), its impact on national wealth is significant. And the relationship with the appeal of the country system as a whole is highly respectable.
But let’s go back and focus specifically on tourism. ‘In the last ten years, the holiday motivation linked to the enjoyment of cultural heritage rose from seventh to first place, appealing above all to the international tourist demand, which is 55%, and to the more upwardly mobile,’ says Loretta Credaro, president of Isnart, the National Institute for Tourism Research (Il Messaggero, 7 November). A tourism that is attentive to the local areas that host it, to experiences, including cultural ones, linked to art, but also to cuisine, wine, design, fashion and other made-in-Italy products. And sensitive to the human and social aspects of the quality of hospitality.
In this context, the idea of industrial tourism moves forward as part of the broader chapter of cultural tourism, leveraging company museums and corporate historical archives, gathered under Museimpresa (with 150 members, including large, medium, and small enterprises, as well as institutional supporters, such as the historical archives of the Cavalieri del Lavoro). Business history. Not only, and not so much, as pride in a past of ingenuity, commitment, work, and creativity. But above all, as a competitive asset, a lever of identity to establish oneself in highly selective international markets, and as a stimulus for innovation.
In times of change and great transitions, in fact, working on the memory of our past and on the valorisation of Italy’s enormous cultural and industrial heritage is a way of testifying that we are part of an active citizenship that allows us to think about the quality of development and its inclusiveness. Italian savoir-faire is a distinctive feature, an ethical value of work on which it is worth focusing.
Our company museums and business archives, in fact, contain the history of women and men who, in the face of the challenges of changing times and even in conditions of great difficulty, provided a productive and commercial response that is still relevant today, as demonstrated by the data showing a strong and robust export performance. These testimonies can also serve as an element of attraction and inspiration for young people, helping them understand how our companies are the ideal environments to realise their projects, assert their initiative, and unleash their creativity.
If tourism stimulates knowledge, industrial tourism in the made-in-Italy territories can also play an important role for companies perennially in search of quality people.
Data from a survey conducted by Nomisma for Museimpresa documents that almost 6 million Italians (5.8 million, to be exact) have visited a business museum, a company history archive or a place of industrial archaeology in the last four years. They were motivated by a desire to better understand what lies behind the iconic objects of the finest Italian products, to learn about the history of the companies and the related art and design, to become familiar with the relationships between industries and territories. They were young (most are between 30 and 44 years old), highly educated, and came mainly from the northern regions. And they deemed the experience ‘educational and formative’. Among the 34 million Italians who, in the last four years, have taken a trip or at least a short excursion, 17% have already visited a company museum, and an additional 21% would gladly go. An interesting opportunity to develop ‘industrial tourism’, therefore. And a more stimulating perspective than ever before for those who want to learn about the economic history, the revitalisation of the business culture, and foster a more widespread and responsible understanding of the role of our manufacturing companies and services in improving the economic development of our country.
The most popular museums? The Ferrari Museum in Maranello, followed by the Crespi d’Adda Village in the province of Bergamo, the Alfa Romeo Historical Museum in Arese, the Lavazza Museum in Turin and the Olivetti Historical Archive in Ivrea. There is plenty of potential to expand and promote other opportunities throughout Italy.
The industrial landscape and the cultural landscape are, in short, parts of the same environment. And with environmental and social care and respect, they can act as an ever stronger driver of development. Of widespread wealth. Of good economy.
(photo: Getty Images)