The promotion and enhancement of the area play an important role in the development of the tourism sector and that is why, thanks to the Nova Ticinum association, the conference "The development of tourism in the province of Pavia. The relaunch of inland areas" was held.
The main topic of the meeting was the analysis of how to promote the territory of the province of Pavia and how to increase the influx of tourists in inland areas that have so much to offer to visitors. There have been many interesting proposals, provided by high-level speakers competent in the touristic field, which can encourage tourism in our area: from religious paths to thermal areas up to fairs and services dedicated to tourism.
Among the speakers: Giorgio Palmucci President of Enit, Monsignor Liberio Andreatta, expert in religious tourism, Roberta Garibaldi A.D. Enit, Giorgio Matto Vice-President Federterme (who replaced Massimo Caputi President Federterme), Gloria Armiri Group Exhibition Manager TTG, Giovanni Merlino President of Federalberghi Province of Pavia and Extraordinary Commissioner of the Pavia Chamber of Commerce, and Gilberto Milanesi creator and designer of oltrepoAdvisor, the system of digital services for tourism in Oltrepò Pavese.
Of the latter we report below part of his speech, given that it concerns in particular the oltrepoAdvisor portal.
"The portal we built was born from a slightly different vision compared to the classic tourist websites: although it also has some aspects of a blog, in reality it is a portal that was built with an IT eye, with an eye to diffusion and communication on major search engines, to always be present with territorial content in the first positions of the first page of search engines, such as Google [...] We have developed many new solutions because one of the fundamental [...] things is to be able to attract the attention of the tourists, but the problem is being able to to keep them in the area", with these words he presents the project, proceeding with the explanation of the useful services it offers in the tourism sector for our territory "We have added several parts, one of the most important ones [...] is the booking system for small accommodation facilities, with particular attention to those in less densely populated areas where there cannot be large hotels [...] and to date this has been a big problem for the management of groups [...] - continues the creator and designer of oltrepoAdvisor - Our system has been devised in such a way as to be able to manage a the position based on the free structure and on the starting point by proximity [...] this allows us to be able to create what, in large cities, especially in historical centers, has now become a widespread receptivity [...] What we have done is put together different structures in such a way as to make them resemble a widespread structure" this exposes the common problem of many towns in the area by proposing a valid and innovative solution that will encourage tourism along with the following services described in the speech cited below.
"We are doing other implementations related to thematic routes, to culture (by culture we mean that we are mapping all the museums, recognized and not, in the various municipalities, as well as a mapping where we say what they do) [...] we also do virtual tours, such as that of google street view, so that even the most distant museums can be visited in some way. We have already done this with different realities. - continues Gilberto Milanesi, exposing the opportunities that this portal offers - The thematic routes also serve to bring the tourist closer to what is not only the culinary and wine aspect, although very important, but also to the cultural point of view. From there [from the idea of the itineraries] we have also created itineraries in the Oltrepò territory that we will replicate in the Pavia and Lomellina areas. They are signs that are affixed in front of the monuments, of the places of interest of the municipality and that create a ring, technically gps. That is, a user who is in front of a monument photographs the qr-code on the sign, which we provide, finds the information [...] and finds them always up-to-date because they are fully usable by the municipal administration and finds, above all, the path that takes them to the next point or to the previous point".
In conclusion:
"We are doing this type of itineraries to involve everyone, not only the monuments, but also the companies because in any case a territory, from our point of view, is also promoted through its products and its producers [...] The products can be accessible to users directly along the routes, which means that with just a few clicks you have a global vision of the territory, as regards to the culture, the places, the monuments, the structures where you can stay overnight and the producers where you can buy".
We wanted to report the intervention that concerns us closely, to better understand the efforts that are being made to make the area accessible from all points of view.
This, together with the other interventions of the speakers present, was an important intervention because it led to reflect on what a territory really needs, what is missing for its enhancement and promotion from every point of view and what is being done to always raise the qualitative level of the proposals.