`'Oleotourism' Becomes Law in Italy - Olive Oil Times
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'Oleotourism' Becomes Law in Italy

By Ylenia Granitto
Jan. 31, 2020 11:40 UTC

Oleotourism in Italy is attract­ing so much inter­est that it has been included in the coun­try’s bud­get for 2020.

According to the new law, from January 1, the pro­vi­sions that reg­u­late the wine tourism sec­tor ​“are extended to olive oil tourism activ­i­ties” and defined the term ​‘oleo­tourism’ as all activ­i­ties car­ried out dur­ing the olive tree cul­ti­va­tion, har­vest­ing and oil pro­duc­tion processes; the tast­ing and mar­ket­ing of olive oil prod­ucts; and all activ­i­ties meant to be recre­ational and infor­ma­tive at olive mills and groves.

Olive oil is not only an ele­ment which con­notes a ter­ri­tory, but it becomes a poten­tial tourist attrac­tion in light of a grow­ing inter­est, demon­strated by the suc­cess of events like the Walk Through the Olives Trees.- Roberta Garibaldi, University of Bergamo

The lat­est fig­ures, pre­sented at the twenty-fifth anniver­sary of the National Association of Olive Oil Cities, show a strong poten­tial for growth in the sec­tor.

“Olive oil themed expe­ri­ences are gain­ing rel­e­vance within the con­text of tourism,” Roberta Garibaldi, a pro­fes­sor of tourism man­age­ment at the University of Bergamo, said. ​“Olive oil is not only an ele­ment which con­notes a ter­ri­tory, but it becomes a poten­tial tourist attrac­tion in light of a grow­ing inter­est, demon­strated by the suc­cess of events like the Walk Through the Olives Trees.”

See Also:Oleotourism News

In her report ​“the tourist val­oriza­tion of olive oil,” Garibaldi said that tourists are inter­ested in vis­it­ing farms and pur­chas­ing prod­ucts as well as in tak­ing an active part in pro­duc­tion activ­i­ties, with 61 per­cent of peo­ple sur­veyed keen to par­tic­i­pate in the olive har­vest and pro­duce their own extra vir­gin olive oil.

Forty-one per­cent of those sur­veyed by Garibaldi also said that they are inter­ested in artis­tic activ­i­ties in the olive groves. Meanwhile, 64 per­cent said that they are inter­ested in learn­ing about the com­pany and ter­ri­tory in which it oper­ates. A fur­ther 57 per­cent said they are inter­ested in meet­ing and inter­act­ing directly with the owner.

Olive oil tast­ing is also an ele­ment of great attrac­tion, with 79 per­cent of those inter­viewed stat­ing that they would like to com­bine the oils with local food. Another 69 per­cent reported that they would like to par­tic­i­pate in immer­sive culi­nary expe­ri­ences in the olive groves.

A strong appre­ci­a­tion is expressed towards his­toric mills and ancient olive trees, with 70 and 76 per­cent of those sur­veyed, respec­tively, inter­ested in vis­it­ing the sites and learn­ing more about them.

Moreover, a large por­tion of Italian tourists would like to taste dif­fer­ent types of extra vir­gin olive oil, and, at the restau­rant, they would like to find an olive oil list paired with the menu; on this, an expla­na­tion by the staff would be wel­comed.

“These find­ings raise the pos­si­bil­ity to build broader, seg­mented offer­ings capa­ble of stim­u­lat­ing the curios­ity and active par­tic­i­pa­tion of the olive oil tourists,” Garibaldi said. ​“It becomes essen­tial to train oper­a­tors in order to sat­isfy all these aspects.”



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