Report Finds Rising Interest in Olive Oil Tourism Amid Knowledge Gap in Italy

Summary

The Second Report on Olive Oil Tourism in Italy shows a 37.1 per­cent increase in olive-themed expe­ri­ences between 2021 and 2024, reflect­ing a broader trend of gas­tron­omy shap­ing tourism choices. The report empha­sizes the impor­tance of ini­tia­tives like olive oil tourism to bridge the cul­tural gap between con­sumers and the prod­uct, high­light­ing the poten­tial for sus­tain­able rural devel­op­ment and eco­nomic ben­e­fits beyond prod­uct sales.

A sig­nif­i­cant expan­sion of olive oil-related tourism in Italy in recent years has coin­cided with a per­sis­tent cul­tural dis­tance between con­sumers and the prod­uct itself.

According to the Second Report on Olive Oil Tourism, the num­ber of peo­ple tak­ing part in olive-themed expe­ri­ences increased by 37.1 per­cent between 2021 and 2024, sig­nal­ing strong growth in con­sumer inter­est.

The report reflects a broader trans­for­ma­tion in Italian food travel, where gas­tron­omy is increas­ingly shap­ing tourism choices and oleo­tourism is expand­ing its role.

“The olive oil tourism report again shows a grow­ing inter­est in olive oil not only as an agri­cul­tural prod­uct but as an expres­sion of ter­ri­tory, his­tory and com­mu­nity,” Michele Sonnessa, pres­i­dent of the national asso­ci­a­tion Città dell’Olio, said in intro­duc­ing the report.

The study notes that Italy’s olive sec­tor rep­re­sents a unique global her­itage, with about 619,000 olive-related enter­prises and more than 500 rec­og­nized olive cul­ti­vars spread across the coun­try. Still, only 47 per­cent of Italians are able to name at least one olive tree vari­ety.

By con­trast, 33 per­cent said they did not know any cul­ti­var, while another 20 per­cent said they did not know how to answer, mean­ing a major­ity of respon­dents were unable to iden­tify a sin­gle olive vari­ety.

The report also found that when asked to name olive vari­eties, about eight per­cent of respon­dents cited com­mer­cial olive oil brands rather than botan­i­cal vari­eties.

For the authors, that gap under­scores the impor­tance of ini­tia­tives such as olive oil tourism, which can help con­sumers con­nect directly with pro­duc­ers, land­scapes and the bio­di­ver­sity behind extra vir­gin olive oil.

“Olive oil tourism has enor­mous poten­tial, espe­cially in our region, cra­dle of some of the most prized extra vir­gin olive oils in the world. Curiosity about this prod­uct, its char­ac­ter­is­tics and its prop­er­ties is finally begin­ning to grow, but knowl­edge about it remains very lim­ited,” Alberto Morettini, gen­eral direc­tor of the multi-awarded Frantoio di San Gimignano in Tuscany, recently told Olive Oil Times.

Morettini’s com­pany has expanded into sev­eral projects that com­bine cul­ture and tourism around olive oil, includ­ing museum-style instal­la­tions, inter­ac­tive tours, and edu­ca­tional expe­ri­ences.

The report noted that oleo­tourism is increas­ingly viewed as a strate­gic tool for rural devel­op­ment and ter­ri­to­r­ial preser­va­tion, since it can gen­er­ate addi­tional income and help counter olive grove aban­don­ment.

“Olive oil tourism expe­ri­ences encour­age more sus­tain­able agri­cul­tural prac­tices and sup­port the con­ser­va­tion of olive bio­di­ver­sity. Oleotourism rep­re­sents a lever capa­ble of strength­en­ing the Italian olive sec­tor, gen­er­at­ing eco­nomic ben­e­fits that go beyond prod­uct sales and con­tribut­ing to the pro­tec­tion of olive land­scapes,” said Roberta Garibaldi, the report’s lead researcher.

The report shows that most olive oil tourism expe­ri­ences are still cen­tered on direct con­tact with pro­duc­ers and their prod­ucts.

Among Italian trav­el­ers who have taken part in olive-related expe­ri­ences, the most com­mon activ­ity is buy­ing olive oil directly from a pro­ducer, cited by 20 per­cent of respon­dents. Guided tast­ings fol­lowed at 12 per­cent, while 11 per­cent said they had vis­ited an olive farm or mill dur­ing their trav­els.

Other com­mon expe­ri­ences included vis­it­ing his­toric mills, attend­ing olive oil fes­ti­vals and tast­ing dif­fer­ent oils in restau­rants paired with local dishes, each men­tioned by roughly 11 per­cent of respon­dents.

While tra­di­tional activ­i­ties remain dom­i­nant, the report also iden­ti­fied grow­ing inter­est in more immer­sive and cre­ative for­mats. About nine per­cent of respon­dents said they had taken part in olive har­vest­ing and made their own olive oil, while eight per­cent had joined walk­ing itin­er­aries through ancient olive groves.

More exper­i­men­tal offer­ings are also emerg­ing. About five per­cent of respon­dents said they had par­tic­i­pated in can­dle­light din­ners in olive groves or booked multi-day tourism pack­ages cen­tered on olive oil.

The research extended beyond Italy to exam­ine France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, which are con­sid­ered the main nearby mar­kets, and found that inter­na­tional tourists often approach olive oil tourism dif­fer­ently from domes­tic vis­i­tors.

According to the report, for­eign trav­el­ers tend to focus more on tast­ings and direct prod­uct dis­cov­ery, while Italian vis­i­tors are more often drawn to broader expe­ri­ences com­bin­ing olive oil with land­scape, cul­ture and well­ness.

The results also showed notable dif­fer­ences in spend­ing behav­ior. The report found that for­eign vis­i­tors are often among the most valu­able seg­ments for olive tourism because they tend to spend more and pri­or­i­tize pre­mium food expe­ri­ences.

In most European coun­tries, the pre­ferred price range for a guided visit to an olive farm with tast­ing is between €20 and €40 per per­son. U.S. tourists, how­ever, show a sig­nif­i­cantly higher will­ing­ness to pay. About 23 per­cent said they would spend between €41 and €60, while roughly 15 per­cent were will­ing to pay between €61 and €100, bring­ing the share of U.S. trav­el­ers ready to spend more than €60 to about 30 per­cent.

More than half of inter­na­tional trav­el­ers, between 56 and 81 per­cent depend­ing on the mar­ket, said they want to expe­ri­ence food and wine tourism in Italy over the next three years.

In a coun­try grap­pling with over-tourism in some des­ti­na­tions, olive oil-related travel is help­ing rede­fine the iden­tity and vis­i­bil­ity of lesser-known rural areas.

Initiatives link­ing pro­duc­tion zones with rural cul­ture, muse­ums and nature-based activ­i­ties are increas­ingly attract­ing both domes­tic and inter­na­tional vis­i­tors.

“Each bot­tle con­tains the work of those who pro­tect often dif­fi­cult ter­ri­to­ries and pre­serve the beauty of rural land­scapes,” David Granieri, pres­i­dent of the Italian olive oil pro­ducer asso­ci­a­tion Unaprol, said in pre­sent­ing the report.

Morettini said an olive mill is not only a work­place but also a place of meet­ings and exchanges among pri­vate pro­duc­ers, farm­ers, millers, and agron­o­mists.

“Still, it is a place where the senses are awak­ened: the aroma of the crush­ing fills the air, the sound of the machin­ery can be heard, the color of each pro­duc­tion is exam­ined and, above all, the new oil is tasted,” he said. ​“We wanted, through the vis­i­tor path we devel­oped inside our mill and through tast­ings, to make these emo­tions acces­si­ble to every­one through­out the year.”

The report sug­gests that olive oil well­ness treat­ments and nutraceu­ti­cal appli­ca­tions could emerge as new tourism niches that attract vis­i­tors year-round.

Despite its growth, the report empha­sizes that oleo­tourism still requires stronger pro­fes­sion­al­iza­tion and orga­ni­za­tion to reach its full poten­tial. Training pro­grams for hos­pi­tal­ity pro­fes­sion­als, olive oil guides and tourism man­agers are seen as essen­tial to turn­ing many exist­ing ini­tia­tives into sus­tain­able busi­ness mod­els.

“We must cre­ate new pro­fes­sional fig­ures, from hos­pi­tal­ity experts to olive guides and man­agers of mill tourism expe­ri­ences,” the report says in its con­clud­ing rec­om­men­da­tions.