Tuscany allocates €487,000 to create rest areas in municipalities with less than 20,000 inhabitants

Tuscany goes towards free and itinerant tourism and finds a further way to make it grow, with benefits for trade and many other activities in villages and small towns. In fact, it has allocated €487,000 for the construction of areas for the temporary parking of motorhomes, which will be destined for municipalities with less than 20,000 inhabitants.

It all started last spring, when APC and Assocamp – with the important contribution of Paolo Bacci, owner of the Tuscan dealership Caravanbacci, who has been doing his utmost for the development in Tuscany of hospitality for RVrs – asked and had a meeting with Leonardo Marras, Councilor for Tourism and Productive Activities of the Tuscany Region. He was immediately very interested.

The official announcement will come out in January and provides that each municipality cannot submit more than one project. The Tuscan regional council has meanwhile approved the guidelines and, as already mentioned at the beginning of the article, made the resources available. The regional contribution will cover half of the eligible expenditure, which must be at least €20,000, and not more than €80,000 for new areas and €40,000 for the redevelopment of existing structures. The loan may therefore fluctuate in the first case from €10,000 to €40,000 and in the second from €10,000 to €20,000. The costs for the purchase of the area are not eligible.

The funding is aimed at municipalities with less than 20,000 inhabitants, but under certain conditions: by December 2022 they will have to create “green” rest areas. To be considered as such, they must be occupied for a fifth by hedges and trees, with at least 5 stalls of no less than 40 square meters, equipped with the classic charging columns and self-cleaning floor unloading areas.

“Outdoor tourism is an important segment of the Tuscan offer: the presence of outdoor tourists in the region in the summer, before the pandemic, touched 10 million: one sixth of those in all of Italy”, comments the councilor Leonardo Marras. “Offering more services will help it grow further in a widespread manner. Moreover, Tuscany also boasts an important manufacturing district in the production of motorhomes and supporting this tourism therefore also constitutes indirect support to the sector”.