At Riva del Garda, on the occasion of Hospitality, there was talk of the evolution of en plein air tourism. The guests present at the round table “Outdoor BOOM, the future of outdoor hospitality” addressed the topics of current trends, the glamping phenomenon, innovative products and how entrepreneurs in the sector are facing new challenges.
Above all, the awareness that the demand for contact with nature and related tourism is not only growing but is pervasive: it can be found in almost every daily aspect, even in the workplace. These are undoubtedly the effects of the pandemic, which first forced us at home and then pushed us to seek life in the open-air again, but they are also trends that have simply been accelerated by this situation.
Where the idea of the lodge tent was born
The public interested in the outdoors is increasing and has different desires than a few years ago. Loek van de Loo, CEO of Vacanze col Cuore explained it well, explaining what prompted him to “invent” glamping. “When we developed the first tent with bathroom and toilet 20 years ago, AIDS was spreading and people were afraid to go to central bathrooms,” he explained. “From there the idea of the lodge tent was born. Since our campsite was 200 meters away from the lake, unlike dozens of other competitors directly on the shores, we always had to invent new things. Glamping was born with this tent which we then developed by inserting a bathtub and an area for the children. When we assembled it at the Utrecht fair, we found ourselves in front of a queue of about a hundred people who wanted to see it: it was the confirmation that we had created a product that people liked“.
The key word for success is “listening to customers”. And Loek van de Loo did so by creating the Glamping Collection and Winter Glamping, which attracted a whole new audience: young people and couples who stay for even just a couple of nights. The price does not matter, because they want to have a unique experience. “The experiences they seek are not chosen for the price, but for the added value that a glamping can offer: nature, clean air, tranquility, privacy,” concluded van de Loo.
Sleeping under the starlight
Viktoriia Borodina, product manager of Diamond Domes, took the opportunity to talk about the transparent domes that can enrich the offer of restaurants, hotels, and outdoor accommodation facilities. “Everyone wants to be outside, but time doesn’t always allow it,” she explained. “With our product it can be done and from the restaurants and bars we have arrived at glamping, where people can sleep under the stars and see the sunrise and sunset. To install them, a concrete or wooden platform is enough. No special permits are needed because it is not a fixed structure: it can be assembled and disassembled in two hours“.
For Stefano Testa, CEO of Leap Factory and architect behind the Grevasutti Bivouac on Mont Blanc, there is a need to redefine the processes with which we will create the infrastructures to make the demand for outdoor tourism coexist with the protection of nature. “We have a great responsibility to safeguard those natural places that today are low-traffic,” he said.
Quality to be certified
You will need quality products made in places far from where they will be used. “Outdoor also means great flexibility: for example, installing five residential units in the woods and adding three the following year, without having to set up a construction site,” explained Testa. “You need to be able to have a product capable of offering a rich experience with the certainty of essential qualities: beauty, technology and even health. Today there are international level certifications that weigh these qualities. I believe that within two years no one will book a room in a tent, a hotel or a caravan without certification, that is, without knowing what kind of climate quality they will find inside the box, whatever it is, that will host him“.
Then Testa explained how he sees the ideal process of purchasing and managing housing solutions designed for the outdoors. “Buying must be a simple experience, like for a car. The formula is analyzed, the options are chosen, everything is evaluated against the budget and quickly. Then, basically, the result must be able to scale, resize or transfer from year to year, guaranteeing the tourist all his skills through serious certifications, not being created with handcrafted improvisation on site but conceived and realized elsewhere. It is a typical process of the industrial product“.
A trend that starts from afar
At the end of the round table is with Alberto Granzotto, president of FAITA – FederCamping. “We have seen how the outdoors fits into a broader strand of nature research,” he said. “It is not new today, but it is a development that began several years ago and linked to the issues of environmental sustainability, brought above all by customers of Northern European origin, where these stimuli arrived a little in advance. Today there is a sensitivity not only on the part of the consumer, but also of the entrepreneurs themselves, who are understanding the evolution of the market by accelerating it in part with innovative products“.
“Creativity, listening to the customer and passion are the characteristics that most characterize all our companies,” continued Granzotto. “The world of tourism in general is made up of passion, because it is a work of sacrifice and in contact with the public, where understanding new needs is the central element. Today one of my thoughts that I have been carrying on for many years is strengthened, namely that there is a single model of tourism sought by the consumer, which can then find expression in various forms. This emerged strongly and should make us reflect. The entire evolution of the product must go towards a more experiential tourism, in which the holiday is a unique moment, an experience that must be worth living, something different that must enrich and make you feel more at ease with nature“.
FAITA: “We work to have quality brands”
The issue of sustainability is considered central by Granzotto. “There is only one world, there is no ‘plan B’, and awareness of this is growing day by day. I am not convinced that two years are enough before the customer chooses only certified structures, but this is the trend. As an association we are working with various companies precisely to have quality brands specific to the outdoor sector that go towards sustainability and the circularity of the raw materials used. And then we will also need training for our fellow entrepreneurs to help them better understand these trends in order to be ready, as a sector, to welcome tourists in a strong and positive way“.
Granzotto recognized the role of the pandemic. “The trend was born before Covid, but this was an accelerator, a catalyst capable of bringing our sector to the attention of an audience that did not know us or that had labeled us as a Spartan way of vacationing,” he said. “Instead, it emerged that we can offer a quality holiday. In this we are very innovative and creative, always offering new services. The holiday is increasingly made up of services, which can be declined in many ways in connection with the territory, which means nature, traditions, food and wine“.
Regulations to be simplified
Finally, Granzotto addressed the issue of the difficult relationship with regulations, which are always too fragmented and local. “In Italy each region and each autonomous province has specific regulations, which is why there are sometimes slower development phases. The Venetian coast saw a situation similar to that of Covid in the late 1980s, with the invasion of algae. That was a crisis with numerical effects comparable to the pandemic: in 2020, in Veneto, we saw a decline in tourism by 50%, as in 1989 and 1990. However, this has determined a new model of outdoor tourism, which has found on the other hand, a legislator capable of making tools available that have made it possible to innovate quickly“. Just what it would take now.
“The creativity within the rules indicates the need for more flexible legislation, keeping at the center sustainability, landscape protection, harmony with nature and the new needs of the market“, confirmed Granzotto. “This is sometimes what limits the development of new entrepreneurs. It is clear that, like all Italian entrepreneurship, we find ourselves in years of profound generational transformation, which also sees the bearers of new ideas and developments that need to be accompanied by a credit, support and training system: other elements on which our association is trying to invest in a very important way“.
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