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FEB. MAR. 2021 XI I I How do you choose your suppliers and what do you particularly want from them at this moment? At this moment the only request I would make to a supplier is the possibility to extend the payment time, something more than the usual 30 days. If there are more industry-related bans next summer, have you thought about activating delivery? My clientele varies from period to period. We usually start in April/May with people who have holiday homes, so families but also foreign tourists (German, English, French) who can take a little holiday in those months. In the high season, the clientele changes: from July onwards, the young people start arriving, we’re talking about an age group of around 20 years old, so the type of client and the type of expenditure is different compared to what you get in September, October, April and May. If we find ourselves in difficulty because of Covid, or if we don’t do the evening (or lunch) service, we’ll certainly bring delivery into play, even though we’re talking about a fairly small town, so it will be difficult to make money and, above all, to keep 20/22 employees. Speaking of crowded cities, you live in your hometown of Naples in winter. Have you ever thought of opening a restaurant in Naples? I’ve thought about it, but I’ve never looked into the idea because I’m not familiar with Naples, I’ve never worked there, I’ve never dealt with that type of work, so I don’t know how I could approach or get to know suppliers or a type of clientele. I do know that my family is still very well known: my family name still echoes in Naples, from my grandmother Nennella, continuing with Dante, which is still a well-known restaurant in Piazza Dante. And then there’s the Zeppola di Mare, a typical recipe of my family, which is nothing more than pizza dough (my family are masters of pizza), with seafood specialities such as mussels, clams, prawns, squid stewed in tomato sauce; everything is then placed in this fried pizza dough. This is a dish that identifies us, a dish that is ours, I feel it belongs to the family because it is a dish that we have made and only we have. We hope to be able to offer it again, and for a long time to come! AT PAGE 34 IN THE KITCHEN Food and wine tourism, waiting for the resurrection A sector that has lost so much due to the pandemic but that can be a driving force for the hospitality sector, because today’s tourists are looking for less crowded places to discover those products that represent the excellence of Made in Italy by Alessandro Vergallo The pandemic, and above all the stop-start lockdowns, have changed the behaviour of tourists and the attractiveness of destinations. Those who were strong before the epidemic may no longer be so, at least for a while. There will be new destinations, perhaps, previously ignored by travel lovers, less famous but now more appealing because the flow of tourists is more balanced. The wine lover has become more of an explorer and lover of diversity than he used to be, so that some regions or areas, hitherto ignored, such as Molise or the inland areas of Campania and Calabria, could hold some nice surprises in store for us. Food and wine in tourism is - and will be - increasingly important. It is a driving force that encourages travellers from all corners of the earth to visit a new place, contributing to the economy of a territory and creating new opportunities for the tourism and agri-food production sectors. Wine tourism is a massive resource for our country. It is the interlocking of two important sectors of the economy that is worth 13% of GDP, and the wine sector has a turnover of 2.65 billion euros. A significant segment because it supports rural centres with an annual turnover of around 42 million. The Italian tourism season in recent years has confirmed that a growing number of travellers, wine lovers, foodies and tourists from various backgrounds, have chosen the wine tourism experience. In 2020, also considering the restrictions imposed by Covid-19, wine tourism has often been characterised as restart tourism: a proximity tourism, economically accessible, integrated with other cultural, gastronomic, naturalistic experiences, accessible to small groups, practicable outdoors, often preferring the vineyard to the winery. CRISIS FIGURES Wine companies have been suffering huge financial losses in recent months in the provision of tourism services. Data collected last summer by the International Wine Tourism Think Tank, a group of international experts from institutions, universities, renowned wineries and consultants coordinated by Roberta Garibaldi (University Professor of Tourism Management, President of the Italian Wine Tourism Association and author and referent for Italy of the international research Food Travel Monitor) and Zaida Semprun (Invitational Lecturer at Basque Culinary Centre & Davis University), provide a preventive dimension of the crisis. “The total blockade in spring 2020,” says Professor Garibaldi, “caused a drop in tourism revenues of over 70% for 35% of wineries, while the average number of employees involved in providing tourism services has fallen by 31%”. Nomisma Wine Monitor, an observatory dedicated to the wine market, during the recent Wine2Wine indicated a 30% drop but used only a sample of wineries, mainly medium and large ones. “Here in Tuscany, where the visitors were mainly foreigners with a substantial quota of Americans,” says Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Sienese producer of Brunello di Montalcino and President of the National Association of Women in Wine, “the percentage rises to over 50%. However, we still do not have definite estimates of the drop in sales due to the pandemic”. Compared to last year, no-one can yet compare the numbers of wine-loving travellers. What is certain is that the majority of visitors were Italian and that, while there was a decrease in bottle sales, there was an increase in requests for wine experiences; in fact, the wine cellars organised with this type of proposal were well received. It is clear that wine and food tourism is in crisis. This is confirmed by the data of some areas of excellence in the Italian wine sector: Tuscany and Veneto. Chianti had 82% of foreign visitors and Valdorcia 58%. Foreign tourism in Tuscany used to be the strongest segment, in terms of numbers and spending share, in the entire region. Now its absence is felt especially in the cities of art.