Interview with Antonio Barreca Director General

In this Antonio Barreca interview, the Director General of Federturismo Confindustria examines how artificial intelligence, digital transformation and industrial strategy are reshaping the future of Italian tourism.

Italian tourism is going through a phase of profound transformation. Global platforms are reshaping distribution, artificial intelligence is changing the relationship with customers, international competition is demanding new investments, and the traditional distinction between incoming and outgoing tourism appears increasingly inadequate to represent the complexity of the supply chain.

In this scenario, the ability to work as a system becomes an essential condition for supporting the competitiveness of businesses and restoring tourism to the industrial role that belongs to it.

Odissey Magazine speaks with Antonio Barreca, Director General of Federturismo Confindustria, to analyse the main challenges facing the sector: from business representation to regulatory fragmentation, from profitability to the shortage of skills, and the impact of artificial intelligence on business models, distribution and data management.

A clear vision emerges at the heart of the interview: Italy possesses an extraordinary cultural, landscape and entrepreneurial heritage, but it still needs to fully transform this advantage into a long-term industrial strategy. More structured businesses are needed, together with greater integration between tourism, transport, culture and technology, policies capable of supporting investment, and new recognition for every component of the supply chain, including outgoing tourism.

What is at stake is the ability of the Italian tourism system to manage change rather than be subjected to it. Over the next ten years, competitiveness, innovation, sustainability and human capital will become increasingly interdependent. For Barreca, the choice that must be made is now clear: tourism must definitively be regarded not as an ancillary sector of the economy, but as one of the country’s strategic industries.

The role of Federturismo Confindustria is more strategic today than ever before. Digital transformation, the spread of global platforms and disintermediation processes are profoundly changing tourism value chains, making it necessary to have a representative body capable of interpreting these changes and supporting businesses through the transition.

Federturismo represents the entire industrial tourism supply chain—transport, accommodation, intermediation, services, culture and leisure—and has the task of ensuring that Italian businesses can compete under conditions of fairness, innovation and sustainability. Today, representation does not mean merely protecting established interests, but contributing to the definition of market rules, promoting investment, supporting digitalisation and encouraging the dimensional and organisational growth of businesses.

In a global context dominated by major international technology operators, the value of representation lies precisely in the ability to work as a system and build industrial policies for tourism.

Outgoing tourism represents an essential segment of the Italian tourism industry. It creates skilled employment, generates added value, supports the competitiveness of the transport system and contributes to Italy’s economic and commercial presence in international markets.

The lack of full recognition probably derives from a still overly simplified view of tourism, which is often interpreted exclusively through the lens of incoming flows. In reality, tourism is a complex industrial system in which mobility, intermediation, distribution and internationalisation are closely integrated components.

Outgoing tourism also represents an important laboratory for commercial, technological and organisational innovation. For this reason, we believe that it should be fully regarded as a strategic component of national industrial and tourism policy, overcoming the now outdated distinction between tourism that “comes in” and tourism that “goes out”.

Rather than a lack of regulation, I would speak of an extremely fragmented regulatory framework that is often not coordinated across national, regional and European levels. This complexity generates uncertainty, administrative costs and a loss of competitiveness for businesses.

Federturismo is active on several fronts. On the one hand, we maintain an intensive dialogue with the Government, Parliament and the European institutions to promote regulatory and administrative simplification measures. On the other, we support member companies in interpreting regulations and accessing support instruments, incentives and investment programmes.

The main structural limitation of Italian tourism is the difficulty of transforming an enormous natural competitive advantage into a long-term industrial strategy.

Italy possesses a heritage that is unique in the world, but it continues to suffer from several structural factors: the small average size of businesses, limited investment capacity, difficulty in attracting and retaining qualified skills, and insufficient integration between tourism, infrastructure, technology and training.

There is also a problem of productivity and profitability that risks limiting businesses’ ability to invest in innovation, human capital and sustainability. For this reason, it is necessary to move beyond an emergency-based view of tourism and adopt a fully industrial approach founded on investment, innovation and dimensional growth.

Artificial intelligence probably represents the most important technological transformation that the tourism sector has faced in recent decades. The opportunities are enormous: personalisation of the offering, optimisation of processes, improvement of the customer experience, predictive demand management, energy efficiency and support for business decision-making.

For a country such as Italy, characterised by a predominance of small and medium-sized enterprises, AI can become a powerful instrument of technological democratisation, allowing even smaller businesses to access advanced marketing, distribution and management tools.

However, there are also significant risks. The first is the widening of the competitive gap between businesses that invest and those that remain excluded from the digital transformation. The second concerns the concentration of economic power and data in the hands of a small number of major global operators. The third is the shortage of the specialist skills needed to manage this transition.

For this reason, Federturismo considers it a priority to invest in training, the dissemination of digital skills and the creation of a national tourism innovation ecosystem.

Italian tourism will have to address at least five major transformations.

The first concerns digitalisation and data management. Businesses will have to evolve from a product-based logic to one based on customer knowledge and the personalisation of the experience.

The second concerns artificial intelligence and process automation, which will become structural elements of competitiveness.

The third concerns human capital. It will be necessary to invest much more in continuous training, digital skills and the attractiveness of tourism professions.

The fourth concerns sustainability, which must be interpreted not as a constraint, but as a factor of competitiveness and international positioning.

Finally, it will be essential to strengthen the industrial dimension of the sector by encouraging consolidation, investment and greater integration between tourism, transport, culture, technology and infrastructure.

Global tourism over the next ten years will increasingly be driven by data, platforms, artificial intelligence and personalised experiences.

Italy has all the resources needed to play a leading role in this transformation, but it must make a clear choice: to regard tourism definitively not as an ancillary sector, but as one of the country’s main strategic industries.

By Daniele Di Stefano