Florence, Italy | A new step towards more conscious and respectful tourism. The Destination Florence Convention & Visitors Bureau Foundation, which counts among its founding members the Municipality of Florence and the Metropolitan City of Florence, has signed a memorandum of understanding with GetYourGuide, the leading international platform for booking travel experiences, to implement the “Sustainable Tourism & Livable City” plan developed by the Municipality of Florence.
The two-year agreement represents an extension of the plan, which aims to make the city more livable for residents while at the same time improving the tourist experience through a number of initiatives implemented by the parties involved. Florence is the first Italian city to sign a memorandum of understanding with GetYourGuide, which reported that between April and June the Tuscan capital ranked among the top five Italian cities leading tourism in the country. Visitor management therefore represents a shared goal to ease the pressure on the most iconic sites.
A central role will be played by the #EnjoyRespectFirenze campaign, conceived within the framework of the Great Italian Destinations for Sustainable Tourism project promoted by the Ministry of Tourism, and carried out by the Municipality of Florence in collaboration with the Destination Florence Foundation. The initiative, already consolidated with the removal from the GetYourGuide platform of proposals for alcoholic tours in the city, will be further promoted through GetYourGuide’s channels to raise tourists’ awareness of the importance of adopting respectful behavior towards the city, its community, and its urban decorum.
GetYourGuide’s commitment will also concern the sharing of aggregated and non-personal data on tourist flows, which will help the Municipality to gather valuable information on visitors’ behaviors and trends; a useful tool for developing more effective public policies and ensuring a balance between hospitality and livability.
“The challenge for sustainable tourism in an increasingly livable city is one of the Municipality of Florence’s top priorities; it requires teamwork that must involve as many stakeholders as possible, and it can only be won with the full collaboration of private operators working in our territory,” says Councillor for Tourism Jacopo Vicini. “In this context, the agreement with the GetYourGuide platform, with which we have already collaborated for the automatic blocking of online offers including alcoholic tours, marks the alliance between the Foundation and one of the most important international operators in the field of tourist experiences. Experiencing our city with respect for its places and its social fabric allows tourists to visit the most authentic Florence, the primary goal of the #EnjoyRespectFirenze campaign that the Destination Florence Foundation is successfully promoting and receiving recognition for at a global level.”
“This agreement fits into a broad and structured framework of public-private collaborations that we have activated in order to contribute to generating value for the city and for those who visit it. Among the objectives of the Destination Florence Foundation is that of facilitating connections between institutions and private entities (both national and international) operating in the vast field of tourist hospitality. These alliances allow public governance to deepen its knowledge of the tourism economy, flows and trends, as well as to identify and build together projects that improve the quality of life of residents and offer tourists authentic and sustainable experiences. Florence can and must be a model of balanced and forward-looking tourism, and our daily work goes precisely in this direction,” emphasizes Laura Masi, President of the Destination Florence Foundation.
Francesca De Falco, Country Manager GetYourGuide Italy, stated: “Florence is among the most iconic and visited Italian cities, and this is why it is essential to develop a more responsible tourism model, capable of highlighting both the great masterpieces and the lesser-known gems of the area. This collaboration aims to demonstrate how important it is to join forces to pave the way for more balanced management and a more respectful enhancement of the extraordinary artistic and cultural heritage we preserve in Italy.”
