At SIA Hospitality Design there was talk of current and future open-air accommodation

SIA Hospitality Design was inaugurated on Thursday October 12 in Rimini, an event in which the camping sector has an important space, also thanks to the collaboration with FAITA-FederCamping. In the morning, the conference entitled “Emerging strategies and solutions. Current and future open-air accommodation, including the needs of guests, industry, and the environment“. Two were the most interesting interventions.

In the first, Valentina Fioravanti, Chief Marketing Officer of Human Company, talked about the trends that are occurring in the sector, highlighting in particular how the demand for services and the search for well-being are growing. The sharing economy is an element that has become part of this world, while the hôtellerie phenomenon is increasingly gaining ground. Finally, sustainability is confirmed as a fundamental trend.

Italians like outdoors

Human Company has also commissioned the Piepoli Institute to carry out a research, carried out on a sample of about 2,000 people, to find out how the Italian holidays went. Compared to 2021, the percentage of Italians who have granted themselves a break has gone from 31 to 56%, and of these one in five has chosen the outdoor holiday.

Of the 19% of the sample who turned their attention to outdoor tourism, 6% opted for the village, 5% for the agritourism, 3% for camping in a bungalow or tent, 2% for camping with a recreational vehicle and another 2% for the mobile home. Following agricamping, mountain huts, and itinerant holidays.

Those who decided for the open-air, while concentrating their attention in the months of July and August (respectively 37 and 53% of the total), took advantage a little more of the “shoulder” months, that is May and September, compared to other vacationers: 10% in May (against 7%) and 18% in September (against 17%). Even in June there were more outdoor lovers (37% compared to 34%).

82 percent of the sample chose Italy (against 11% of those who preferred to leave national borders and 7% of those who took vacation both in Italy and abroad), with 71% who they did it simply because they prefer the beautiful country and 17% for economic reasons. In total, in the last two years, one in four Italians has chosen an open-air holiday. The last interesting fact from the research carried out by Human Company / Istituto Piepoli is that on average the outdoor tourist spent €1,787 against the €1,438 of those who preferred a more traditional holiday.

Towards a unique experience

The second interesting intervention was that of Alessandro Van de Loo, of Vacanze col Cuore, who after having told how the costumes of lovers of outdoor holidays have changed (first caravans, then pitches equipped with tent and finally mobile homes) explained how at some point, in the 2000s, European campsites all became very similar, at least from a product point of view.

The following evolution has seen on the one hand a guest who is increasingly happy with this type of offer, but on the other hand more and more oriented towards the search for a unique experience. Vacanze col Cuore has been able to respond to this request by inventing the concept of glamping, which is actually a little overused today. Once again, therefore, we need to push the accelerator in the direction of the uniqueness of the experience, because having a tent with a bathroom is not enough to talk about glamping.

Today the guest is constantly looking for particular products, such as the tiny houses that are popular in Northern Europe. And each location must have its specific characterization. Today the so-called “nature houses” are also of great impact, which typically have a slightly more basic structure, but which give emotion thanks to the integration of the landscape. In this context, new targets appear, such as couples looking for something original and who need new proposals. The answer can come from the open-air suites, with hotel-like services and, soon, with ideas such as the Victoria Room, which the creator Crippaconcept defines as “the hotel way of camping“.