On 1 and 2 March, Valladolid will once again become the epicentre of the wine tourism sector, hosting the 4th edition of FINE #WineTourism Marketplace.

Over two intense days, wineries, hotel complexes, routes and the most important players in the world of tourism will come together in an event designed by and for business. As Alberto Alonso, General Manager of the Valladolid Trade Fair, pointed out at the presentation, “FINE was born with the aim of being a place for business, to promote commercial relations between the wine regions of Europe and the main international tourist markets“.

In this clear international context, one of the eyes on which the fair will have its sights set will be on Italy: a country that, being the largest wine producer in the world -according to data from 2021, it produced up to 5,020 million litres, compared to France’s 3,760 million-, attracts some fourteen million people with an approximate expenditure of 2,500 million euros.

We are talking about a country with up to twenty wine regions*: from Piedmont – the largest of them all, with up to a sixth of the country’s vineyards – and Veneto, in the north of the country, to Sicily or Apulia in the south, passing through the charismatic Tuscany, Lombardy or Emilia-Romagna.

Wine tourism, the lever for other tourists in the country

“Wine tourism is much more than selling wine“, said Massimo Garavaglia, the Italian Minister of Tourism, recently. “When you sell a bottle of wine, you are selling the territory behind that bottle and the culture of that territory”.

This commitment on the part of the institutions is transformed into facts through the way in which the different regions have managed to link the wine experience to a wide range of activities, from active tourism to fashion or cultural tourism.

As a curiosity: regions with a strong cycling tradition such as Lombardy – where one of the five most important classics in the world, the Giro di Lombardia, is held – or Piedmont, have been able to link up with sports organisers to attract more tourists. Enit, the country’s leading tourism agency, teamed up with RSC Sport, organiser of the Giro d’Italia, to launch a massive campaign to promote tourism in Italy.

The future of the sector relies on young people and sustainability

The transalpine country, which in 2019 launched its own regulations on wine tourism, has clear guidelines for the future of the sector, which include making it a sustainable tourism focused on the new generations that are beginning to become independent and allocate part of their resources to tourism.

Italy wants to play an important role in this combination at the international level. In the words of Roberta Garibaldi, CEO of Enit, who gave a talk on the subject at the 2nd edition of FINE: “the environment, the economy and society are important. Environmental, economic and social sustainability is a driver of choice for young people“.

*(Piedmont, Valle d’Aosta Aoc and Liguria, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Trentino Alto-Adige, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Tuscany, Umbria, Marche, Abruzzo and Molise, Lazio, Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Apulia, Sicily and Sardinia).