REGIONAL POLICIES GOOD PRACTICES

Wine Food Festival

PROMOTER

Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Regional Ministry of Tourism and APT Servizi srl.

PARTNER

Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Regional Ministry of Tourism and APT Servizi srl.

IMPLEMENTATION PERIOD

Since the Fall of 2009

CONTEXT

www.winefoodfestival.com is a website especially created as a promotional vehicle for the event: “Wine Food Festival Emilia-Romagna: Segui il Gusto!” (Wine Food Festival Emilia-Romagna: follow the Taste!).  The Festival itself was jointly created by the regional ministries of Agriculture and Tourism; and APT Servizi Emilia-Romagna  handled its communication.  In the autumn of 2009, Wine Food Festival saw its first of 40 enogastronomic events held in characteristic towns, seaside villages and medieval castles.

Wine Food Festival originated from La Strada dei vini e dei sapori which is a network of 16 trails comprised of 1300 small farmers, vineyards, dairy/cheese producers, bed and breakfasts and local artisan shops.  The network originated with the Regional Law number 23/2000, in order to stimulate the local economy.

PROJECT TYPE

Long-term

BENEFICIARIES

small and micro enterprises operating in the tourism and agro food sectors, tourists.

GOALS

 to promote agricultural tourism.
 to sustain local farmers.
 to enhance Emilia-Romagna’s offer of genuine products.
 to highlight the best village feast fairs, in terms of organization of events and quality of products, already present within the network called La Strada dei vini e dei sapori – the trail of wine and flavours. 
 to transform simple tasting of wine and typical products, into a well rounded vacation experience, so visitors can discover a new town, learn its history and traditions, and meet its people.

ACTIONS

ICT was used as a promotional instrument as it can reach a considerable number of potential local and international tourists.  It was decided to implement a single site, www.winefoodfestivalemiliaromagna.com, in order to create an efficient demonstrative tool and to contain costs.
APT Servizi was used to market the trails, as it specialises in tourism promotion for the region of Emilia-Romagna, and already has a developed IT infrastructure.  Therefore, the implementation of the strategy was effective and efficient.  The organizers of the Festival, through ICT, using APT Servizi’s services, wanted to create a simple structure with easy links between events, vacation propositions and accommodations bookings.
A potential tourist, by consulting the website, sees a description of events, a catalogue of products and tour package offers. 

OUTPUTS AND CONCLUSIONS

After the first edition of the Festival, the website received 150.000 contacts.  At the events, 1.029.030 visitors experienced wine and food tasting.

GROUP PROFIT

The website also permits data collecting for statistical purposes, such as the number of tourism operators that have presented packages for the single event, the number of packages published, the number of events of the festival, the number of visitors