Strengthening experiential tourism and valuing typical products. These are the goals of agrotourism, an Italian culture that finds the ideal environment to develop in Serra Gaúcha and that will be presented at the next edition of the Envase Brasil fair, in Bento Gonçalves, between April 23 and 25, by Fausto Faggioli, a reference for the sector in Italy.
The expert will give a talk on the first day of the fair, within Meeting Wine, a meeting with experts from the world of wine, in the presence of the Italian Consul General in Porto Alegre, Valerio Caruso.
According to Faggioli, agritourism is practiced by 26 thousand establishments in Italy and injects almost 2 billion euros (R$ 10,83 billion) into the national economy, attracting 4 million travelers per year.
“The main benefit of agritourism, by shortening the production chain and producing locally, is the ability to relate directly to the market, therefore the value of the productions and services offered is adjusted to the company’s economic needs”, highlights the speaker, who defines this trend as a way to promote the territory and host the end consumer to add value to local products through experiences.
According to Faggioli, agritourism is an activity that emerged to help supplement farmers' income, but it goes beyond that. “It promotes social interaction with tourists, who feel comfortable in this informal environment, surrounded by nature and its rhythms, valuing rural culture and typical products”, he reinforces.
And cities like Bento Gonçalves, the main Brazilian wine tourism destination and full of natural scenery, with 1,7 million visitors per year, become the ideal place for promoting agricultural tourism.
The municipality is part of a new route centered on spirituality: the Rota dos Capitals, developed to explore the small temples built by immigrant families and their descendants on the sides of roads in the interior, amidst hills and vineyards as far as the eye can see.
The path involves 10 cities in the Serra Gaúcha and will be more than 800 kilometers long, a kind of Brazilian-style Santiago de Compostela and can be explored through several micro-routes.
For Faggioli, tourism in rural areas represents a growing segment with interesting development opportunities, given that travelers are increasingly seeking direct contact with nature.
“The opportunities are derived from the ability to respond to some of the emerging trends in tourist demand, which favor less mass forms of experience and more attentive to the values of nature, culture, enogastronomy and rural life in general.
The tourist market wants to discover the authenticity of a place through the rural world and its products”, he says. Author of several marketing and communication books on rural development and collaborator of universities, public administrations, among other European bodies, the speaker states, however, that agritourism requires a vocation for hospitality and a passion for the land and rural traditions.
“Today, people may forget what we said, they may even forget what we did, but people will never forget how we made them feel. That’s why agritourism is not just what you offer me, but how you make me feel”, he teaches. (HANDLE)
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