“Visit Tuscia Travel Mart” opens to foreign buyers for the first time

The Tuscia tourist patrimony being showcased at the third edition of “Visit Tuscia Travel Mart” will be held at San Martino al Cimino on October 1-4 at the historical Palazzo Doria Pamphili. The event will be open to foreign buyers for the first time, with the Scandinavian market chosen as a priority. Hundreds of local sellers will have the opportunity to meet with 40 buyers, and the planned presence of ten top-hosted buyers from Sweden will be the novelty of the Visit Tuscia 2009 Travel Mart.

Among the 30 buyers invited, the prevailing presence is from traditional Italian tour operators, including Hotelplan Italy, Iperclub, Sepitur, and network online tourism operators from 13 Italian regions headed by Lazio and Lombardy who were selected for their product line – religious, cultural, thermal, archeological, lacustral, environmental, and enogastronomic.

The high interest in the destination due to its variety of attractions has encouraged 30 percent of the 100 operators of the previous events to include Tuscia in their brochure. This means that a diversified and competitive tourist destination can attract new market segments – bliss in these times of a fierce tourist recession.

The closing balance of the 2009 tourist season for this area, originally foreseen as disastrous, turned positive owing to the massive presence, in particular of the Scandinavian tourist, during the month of August not only in Viterbo, the capital of the province of Tuscia, but other places as well. The below target 2009 tourist receipts throughout Italy caused a reorganization of the offer, in particular on the price front. Tuscia will apply this strategy to benefit the foreign, as well as the Italian markets, as suggested by the President of the Chamber of Commerce of Viterbo Mr. Ferindo Palombella and by Mr. Vincenzo Peparello, marketing manager of Visit Tuscia, at a recent meeting within the ENIT Rome premises.

The opening to the Scandinavian market is motivated by two reasons: the scheduled 11 low-cost connections with Rome (60 km away from Tuscia) and the strong interest of this market towards the archeological sites. Such interest dates back to the 1950s when King Gustaf VI personally participated in the excavation of archeological sites that characterize the Etrurian territory. It should be noted that Lazio (Tuscia is located north of the Lazio region) is one of the regions most appreciated by the foreign markets and holds the second position along with Tuscany.

Visit Tuscia is promoted by the province of Viterbo Council for Tourism and the support of the Council for Tourism of the Lazio Region, ENIT, ATI, the patronage of Assotravel, Confindustria, Assoviaggi Confesercenti, FIAVET Confturismo, and the technical assistance of CAT Viterbo.