Florence, June 29, 2020 – I tourists they begin to reappear in the center. A hyper-proximity tourism, as the insiders define it, which does not fill, but animates streets and squares. At least those of the most precious historical center. Piazza della Signoria, the Uffizi loggia, the Lanzi loggia and goes up to the Arno river and the Ponte Vecchio. And with the tourists, few or many who are, the manger is back. Yesterday a walk under the walls of Palazzo Vecchio smelled of mortadella, but also of finocchiona, with smudges of tarfutato oil. In any case, it was necessary to pay attention to where to put your feet as the sidewalks were overcrowded with mouths wide open or juicy chewing.
Images that almost make the president of Confesercenti Firenze, Claudio Bianchi, smile. “This is certainly not tourism that can restart the sector’s economy. They are people who come to browse on the not too crowded city “. In any case it is always and only about hit and run tourism that is not good for the city.” It is not surprising – explains Bianchi – because to date we are still on the tourist front in pre-Covid programs . There is no perception of what will be next and in our sector the choices made produce their effects in two years or more. “It means that we were a manger and we will return, resigned to the resumption of that daily tourism that consumes the city Bianchi is a tranchant: “We need precise political choices and rules.” But it does not refer to the famous anti-sandwich ordinance that prohibited tourists from using the Uffizi steps or the Loggia de ‘Lanzi bench to eat their meal. “Neither – he insists – the possibility of adding a few benches to save the sidewalks. Our city of art needs stricter rules, necessarily different from those of the pure market. We have a heritage to protect and the trivialization of the commercial offer often and willingly translates into an evil from a tourist point of view. “But it is not all the fault of the municipal administration that in fact, after the liberalization of Bersani in 1998, has always had few tools to intervene. Until 2009 in Florence the licenses for new restaurants in the historic center were blocked and the doors of the streetfood were opened for those who wanted to invest. The habit of eating sandwiches on the street was born then in that period and has grown exponentially. Bianchi denies that the success of streetfood is due to too expensive prices in restaurants. “We have – he comments – lower prices in Milan, Venice, Turin and our historic center has an almost higher food capacity than New York, we have one of the highest intensity of food points per square kilometer in the world and studies tell us that we are calibrated to accommodate something like 45 million t urists a year, more than twice as many as we, together with the cityusers, welcomed in the pre-covid. If precise political choices are not made in this period, rules on administration, on the necessary spaces and more, everything will return as and worse than before in a year or two. The managers of the activities will change, but others will come because the large properties continue to bet on the exponential growth of tourism and renting restaurants makes more than renting to any other type of activity “.
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