ABSTRACT
Even today, most tourism to Italy is to an extent cultural, and the country is among the world’s top five tourism destinations. It is likely to retain this position because of the appeal and variety of its tourism products, although the marketing and organization of these could in many cases be improved. Italy’s tourism products include:
short city breaks and longer touring holidays, appealing mainly to art lovers music festivals, usually associated with a particular composer’s hometown, such
as Pesaro (Rossini) and Torre del Lago near Lucca (Puccini); Italy originated opera as an art form and there it enjoys widespread popular support
seaside holidays summer lakes and mountains holidays in the Alps winter-skiing holidays in the Alps health tourism, based on Italy’s abundant geothermal resources – spas such as
Ischia, Montecatini Terme and Abano have an excellent international reputation religious pilgrimages to the shrines of Rome, Assisi, Loreto and Padua rural tourism, including stays in farms and villas that vary in size from the modest
to the magnificent; the government agency, Agriturist, has done much to promote rural tourism as a means of stemming the depopulation of the countryside
trade fairs and exhibitions; notably Milan, Genoa, Bologna and Turin sport tourism, focusing particularly on football and motor racing activity holidays, for example, hiking and climbing in the Dolomites.
