{"id":122953,"date":"2022-03-28T18:44:45","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T16:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/?p=122953"},"modified":"2023-06-29T10:32:03","modified_gmt":"2023-06-29T08:32:03","slug":"bologna-bleisure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voyages-d-affaires.com\/en\/bologna-bleisure","title":{"rendered":"In Bologna, business tourism saved by leisure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tourism for Bologna<\/strong> has thrived in the shadow of a deep-rooted certainty among many Italians and Europeans. That of being a city totally focused on business<\/strong>. That's true. With its 390,000 inhabitants<\/strong>Bologna is one of Italy's major economic centres, <\/strong>in particular with a a dense network of companies in the agri-food, machine tool, automotive and publishing sectors <\/strong>a university centre with 90,000 students <\/strong>the Cineca centre, a European leader in High Performance Computing (HPC). Not forgetting the Fiera Bologna fairs and exhibitions<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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For ten years now, we've been trying to promote Bologna, a business city par excellence, in a different way.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

All of this led to the creation of theAttractiveness of the capital of Emilia-Romagna<\/strong>. In fact, depending on the statistical source, the region ranks third or fourth in Italy in terms of GDP per capita. But the health crisis has accelerated a trend that the tourist authorities were already aware of: a slowdown in the business market<\/strong>. \"\u00a0We've been trying to do this for ten years. promote Bologna differently<\/strong>business city par excellence. For ten years, we've been positioning the city as a destination for urban tourism and culture in particular. And we've succeeded, within 2019, travellers' motivations were evenly split between leisure and business<\/strong><\/em>\" explains Patrik Romano, Managing Director of Bologna Welcome<\/strong>the municipal tourism agency.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

A natural crossroads for business<\/span><\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Bologna is ideally located in Italy, thirty minutes by train from Florence, one hour from Milan, one and a half hours from Venice and two hours from Rome. Rome<\/a>This makes it a natural crossroads for business. \"\u00a0But this is also a weakness for the business.<\/strong>. Thanks to the TGV network, business travellers now make a round-trip day trip to Bologna. What's more, the trend in the trade fair sector is to reduce the number of days of activity. All this has a negative impact on Bologna's hotel and service industries.<\/em>\" continues Patrik Romano.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Hence this 360\u00b0 turn. \"\u00a0It was important to win over individual leisure tourists. This made it possible tobalance hotel occupancy rates, win over domestic customers who still perceive us as a business city<\/strong>. And to pull ourselves up one of Europe's most popular secondary towns<\/strong>. Here again, the relative lack of notoriety compared to cities like Florence or Venice is a factor of curiosity for many Europeans.<\/em>\" says the Director of Bologna Welcome.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n