“Food and Wine Tourism Report” 2022: trends between wine, food and beauty

The last two years have been of great criticality for the whole tourism sector, and consequently for wine tourism, with the restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic and the consequent economic crisis which caused important damages to the sector, while making new and difficult challenges emerge which all the people involved in the sector have been called to face. Even the dynamics of consumption have changed: today the traveler is more demanding, active, pays particular attention to safety and sustainability, as emerged from the 2021 edition of the “Food and Wine Tourism Report”. The interest in wine and food in travel has been growing, widening to new modalities and experiences which are more involving, innovative and green. The richness of our country, which boasts an enormous heritage of products, identities, cultures and landscapes, can allow Italy to become a leader in food and wine tourism in the coming years. And stimulate, if adequately supported, the recovery of the Italian tourism sector, because it is able to combine two of the major Italian excellences: tourism and food, generating economic value and new opportunities for destinations. That’s why the focus of the 2022 edition of the “Report on Enogastronomic Tourism”, of which Roberta Garibaldi is the author and realized under the aegis of the Italian Association of Enogastronomic Tourism, is all about the wine-food-touristic offer of Italy, giving an updated picture of the single components both at European level - with a comparison with our main competitors - and at regional level. “There are definite signs of recovery after a difficult two-year period - comments Roberta Garibaldi - but the objective for the near future is to generate economic value and new opportunities for destinations, focusing on sustainability, innovation and experientiality”.

At WineNews, the Minister of Tourism also took stock of the state of the art of wine tourism, which “still has unexpressed potential, there are realities where the union between tourism and wine is already strong and present, such as in Franciacorta, Trentino or Prosecco, and others where there is still work to be done. In September, Alba will host the “World Wine Tourism Congress”, for the first time in Italy, with 163 nations involved. We have the good fortune to have a unique and enormous difference in quality production, but we need organization. For example, in the promotion of the Giro d’Italia we have a daily session dedicated to the promotion, stage by stage, of the different excellences”, adds Minister Massimo Garavaglia.

Returning to the new report, ten trends emerge, telling the story of the moment for Italian wine tourism and beyond: “Local is the new global”, “The growth of organic”, “Wine as a catalyst for bookings”, “The potential of breweries as a tourist destination”, “Opening the roads to bikes and hikers”, “Digital turn for taste museums”, “Race for Unesco heritage”, “A restaurant in difficulty, but eclectic and lively”, “Farmhouse, the place of well-being” and “The ability to enhance the great Regions of the Center-South”.