The "made in Riccione" model of tourism is a winner

Riccione opens a counter-offensive in view of the loss of competitiveness suffered by Italian tourism in recent years (it is now in 14th place in international classifications for visitor arrivals, down 4% in 2004). The town is in the process of upgrading territory and services in order to keep, and increase in number, the 5 million visitors who come each year and to lengthen the visitor season through trade fairs and conferences in a place which bases its economy on tourism. The actions of local government have secured for this Adriatic Riviera town the sum of 350 million euro for carrying out structural modernisation work.

The investments concern work on the beach and on the sea-front promenade, new underground car parking space, restyling of the shopping area, the new conference centre, the health spa, a 5-star resort with 800 places from the conversion of a former holiday camp, the Olympic swimming pool, the theatre in a converted brick-factory, the new squash stadium (Riccione is to become the headquarters of the Italian federation) and Oltremare, the new marine park for “edutainment” on the hill near Aquafan water park .

Riccione, although justly proud of its tradition of hospitality, has understood the necessity for upgrading its services and structures in response to the new demands of tourism, and has modified its target to include especially the 35-45 age group, new families, and the world of conferences and their participants.

The Mayor, Daniele Imola, lately returned from China and now awaiting a delegation from Manchuria, is pleased with this policy .«The winning factor is putting together public and private enterprise, with mixed companies, project financing (Riccione Municipality is number 8 in the league tables drawn up by Il Sole 24 Ore in May 2005 for this type of enterprise), and other instruments available to local government ».

Besides structural interventions, the Municipality is putting into practice a marketing strategy which is already giving results. Visitor numbers for the first 4 months of the year have run counter to the general trend, showing an increase of 9% compared with the previous year (+ 18 % from Italy and -9% from abroad) and an increase of 13% in arrivals. «These figures are the proof that our marketing makes sense», says Lucio Berardi, Deputy Mayor and Councillor responsible for Tourism and Technological Innovation in the town, «The increase in numbers of Italian visitors demonstrates the effectiveness of the marketing strategies practised during this last year at a national level. We are now preparing to communicate with other countries. The winning strategy has been organising events with strong commercial partners able to multiply the visibility and communication of the town. An example: the fashion show in collaboration with the Milan Chamber of Fashion which opened the season here, and which was televised by a number of channels».

Major sponsors for major events in a town which by means of this strategy has been able to multiply by ten its investment capacity, re-inventing itself as a “medium” with returns of 1O million euro of advertising investment in the first six months. Figures which would be unthinkable for the narrow budget of a municipal administration.
For visitors, the key event was Riccione Sport Village, 60 days of concerts and entertainment from morning to evening on the beach, with initiatives for well-being aimed both at adults and children, offered by the sponsors of the project: Tecnogym, Maxibon, Vitasnella, Teuco.
The Riccione marketing model also takes into consideration technical innovation, including optic fibre cabling of the whole town to be completed within two years, to link resources and services on offer, make available maps of the town and visitor trails, and supply the town with "touch screens" for local information and a wireless area for conference participants and journalists covering the events.
Conference participants are the new target addressed by the town of Riccione, an attractive target because of the volume and because their spending capacity is three times that of the traditional visitor. The new conference centre, which will be ready by the end of 2006, will hold 2000 people in its main conference hall. The town promises to modernise receptive structures and to keep hotels open in winter to accommodate these visitors.
The town will also have a new Internet site, www.riccione.it which will narrate with images what is going on in town. «We expect a lot from this instrument», concludes Lucio Berardi, «considering that 19% of our visitors learned about Riccione through Internet».

The target: conferences

With a quota of 26.2% of overall turnover, conference attendance is the number one type of Italian tourism, ahead of cultural-historical-artistic and sea-and-lake tourism. There were 110 thousand conference meetings, and almost 18 million participants, for an overall turnover of over 22.5 thousand million euro.
These figures, presented by Attilio Gardini of the University of Bologna at the meeting entitled “Conferences: progress and economy” which took place in Riccione on June 25 th last (on the same occasion the prize-giving ceremony for the "Vele d'oro" event took place), show the importance of "conference tourism". The event was introduced by the Mayor Daniele Imola and by the President of Palariccione spa Giorgio Montanari, and I was present. Espansione has for a number of years maintained that the target model - especially clusters – is in difficulty : it has become a problem identifying genuinely homogeneous groups of individuals.
A conference has the advantage of bringing together groups of people linked by a shared interest, who for this occasion at least may be considered homogeneous. It is therefore a significant variable for marketing.