Monica Saielli – Assocamping

We met Monica Saielli, national president of Italian Assocamping Confesercenti. Co-owner of Camping Adriain Riccione together with her sisters and two other partners, Monica Saielli has been at the helm of the association for 5 years, having among its tasks that of assisting open-air tourist accommodation facilities both on regulatory issues and on promotion and innovation of the offer. Since March 2020, the association has highlighted an acceleration of its activities in support of the demands of the sector, affected by the uncertainties generated by the pandemic. Here’s what he told us.

Camping Business: Let’s start with Assocamping Confesercenti. How is it structured and what are its aims?
Monica Saielli: Assocamping is not an autonomous and independent association but belongs to Assoturismo and Confesercenti. Assoturismo is the acronym that groups together all the categories of Confesercenti that in some way deal with tourism, so there are us, hoteliers, travel agencies and so on. Assocamping, in the context of Assoturismo Confesercenti, represents the managers of open-air accommodation facilities. The services offered and dedicated to open-air tourist accommodation facilities range from assistance to companies in national collective bargaining to dialogue with institutional entities to protect the interests of the sector. But we also support the associates to initiate the necessary transformations capable of making open-air accommodation structures increasingly responsive to the needs of both foreign and Italian demand. And we also take care of encouraging and enhancing the open-air holiday, as we did with the project conceived by Plein Air magazine of which we were partners: #LaTuaMiglioreVacanza. Assocamping represents about 30% of the companies in the sector.

Camping Business: Can you explain better what the protection you offer to entrepreneurs towards trade unions consists of?
Monica Saielli: Trade union representation is very important, and it is, of course, in offices where the company’s voice can be heard, even if it is underestimated by many managers. Through Confesercenti, the associates are represented in front of the workers’ unions in the national and territorial collective bargaining. Assocamping also conducts trade union action to support the category, to overcome regulatory and legislative problems, and we operate through the legal office of the association, always attributable to Confesercenti.

Camping Business: How do you interact with the other regional presidents?
Monica Saielli: We have periodic council meetings. Lately they have become much more assiduous, but of course in virtual form. The topic of the next meeting will be which measures to request to the Government. It is necessary to intervene to ower local taxes, in particular to eliminate the waste tax, by implementing direct funds to the municipalities; it is necessary to further extend the moratorium on mortgages and loans to at least March 2022; freeze the tax dispute for at least 24 months; extend the tax credit for rents to the entire period of health emergency and provide for the blocking of evictions at least for the whole of 2021; intervene on flexibility and lowering the labor costs (simplification of on-call work, reduction of the cost of a fixed-term contract…). In this regard, it is essential to extend all social safety nets by way of derogation until necessary; increase the amount of the Tax Credit Requalification from the current 180 million for the years 2020 and 2021 to 500 million; extend the Tax Credit until 2023; extend the economic incentive, 110% “super bonus” also to accommodation facilities; provide for the “holiday bonus” for the whole of 2021; suspension and/or cancellation of IMU tax for the entire period of health emergency. Greater simplification and less bureaucracy are also essential, which grip the company making every innovation difficult, if not impossible. 

Camping Business: What happened when the Covid-19 epidemic broke out? How did Assocamping move and with what results?
Monica Saielli: Assocamping was very active. We moved immediately. We first had to tell the government what difficulties we were going through, why that needed to be done, as well as the measures the government should have taken to support our businesses. We have prepared a protocol with anti-Covid security measures to be able to work and welcome guests safely. This union action was accompanied by another type of action, aimed at highlighting the values ​​of an outdoor holiday. So, our trade union action was carried out on these two fronts, that is a dialogue with the government to envisage the needs the sector needed to face the great crisis that Covid was causing, and on the other hand to support and make our sector known. Through our communication, we were able to bring many people closer to the campsite, as a type of holiday, and therefore we were able to make it clear that an outdoor holiday could be done even in times of Covid in absolute safety.

Camping Business: Did it work?
Monica Saielli: I would say yes, even if the season has had a trend that cannot be compared to last year, but certainly cannot even be compared to the projections that were made at the opening of the campsite or shortly before. We certainly didn’t think we would work like this, as it happened later.

Camping Business: So, in your opinion, taking stock of the season, didn’t it go so badly?
Monica Saielli: Compared to the premises it did not go badly. I feared that we would have worked at 50%, while also based on what has emerged from our members, the decline should settle at 35-40%. However, we have to wait for accurate final figures. And the month of September was also good. My facility was supposed to close on October 5th, but we decided to extend it by a week because we were full of foreigners campers.

Camping Business: Many RV manufacturers have told us that 30% of sales are made up of newbies. Were you able to identify the percentage of new customers?
Monica Saielli: Unfortunately, it is a data that we do not have, but it would be very interesting to analyze. Above all to understand over the years if the new customer has become loyal. People who are unfamiliar with an outdoor holiday are fascinated when they discover it. In my opinion, anyone who has spent their camping holidays this year will return in the future.

Camping Business: With Faita Federcamping, you had different paths before the pandemic. Then in the emergency situation a constructive dialogue began between you. You have also issued a joint press release…
Monica Saielli: We have started a dialogue both at a regional and national level. Unfortunately, the government does not consider us. Often no importance is given to our sector and I am very sorry about this, because we are the second type of accommodation at the national level in terms of numbers. The shared press releases and other initiatives launched together with Faita and Assitai demonstrate a communion of intent and increase the power of the voice of our sector.

Camping Business: I, who have been an observer of this sector since 1996, have always found a certain disconnect in the last 20 years between the world of motorhome production and distribution and the world of camping. A dialogue that has failed a bit. The merit of having reunited this sector goes to Plein Air magazine, which was the first to work to reunite the entire supply chain. I also read an interesting interview with them…
Monica Saielli: This article came out at the beginning of the lockdown, if I remember correctly. I highlighted what could be the strong points of a holiday spent in an open-air accommodation facility, campsite, tourist village. Values ​​that we know well, but that could have been more appreciated in times like these we live in. This has brought a wave of interest and optimism especially in those who use the camper and beyond. There is no possibility of gathering in a campsite: how many square meters are there for each guest? Very many, so the problem really boiled down to a minimum.

Camping Business: Has this emergency situation reunited your associates a bit? Has it given new energy and dynamism to give birth to ideas that lead Assocamping towards a future with some different initiative?
Monica Saielli: Yes, it has reunited Assocamping and made the associates more active. In a situation of need like this, we have worked hard. The need to guarantee the economic survival of our activities makes us more creative, in every sense. I think that especially at this stage we should focus on the requests to be forwarded to the Government, which has only partially taken into account what we were asking. There is still a lot of work to be done, also because the tourism sector has suffered a big decline, tourism businesses must be supported. It is true that the season has gone better than we could have imagined, but there will be 40% less than the previous year so the Government must support us to ensure our businesses remain standing and at the same time to promote and enhance our sector.