A round table held at the MonteNapoleone Yacht Club in Milan had two leading nautical associations discuss the perception of the sector in our country, the nautical and coastal tourism and the upcoming events such as the Genoa Boat Show.
UCINA’s president Carla Demaria, Nautica Italiana’s president Lamberto Tacoli, Altagamma’s Honorary Chairman and Nautor’s Swan owner Leonardo Ferregamo, MonteNapoleone’s president Guglielmo Miani and the lawyer and owner Salvatore Trifirò were the main actors of the debate.
About the perception of the sector, Carla Demaria commented that it has been changing. “In the past years we were not considered as an industrial sector but as a simple niche and for this reason we had to struggle much more than other countries during the hardest years of the crisis. Just think that the Monti Budget (and the various editions of the Tax) caused a loss of 800 million euro to the sector. Now the perception has changed and the government considers us in a different way.”
Lamberto Tacoli agrees with Demaria, and adds that Italy is still a leader in the global nautical industry, therefore it’s time to stop thinking about a difficult past and to keep working on the perception of the sector. “I wish in this sense a transversal effort, I hope that, together with UCINA and other partners we are able to commit to common aims”.
The round table was also the occasion to debate the nautical shows, about which UCINA and Nautica Italiana have very different approaches.
Lamberto Tacoli presented the events programmed by his association and asked UCINA for a collaboration, after congratulating Demaria for her association’s tangible results. According to Tacoli, a common aim should be to innovate the Genoa Boat Show and also to think about different locations. The comparison with France, which is going to hold four different shows this year, lead Tacoli to believe that more events could better support the sector, and Fiera di Milano already expressed the wish to collaborate for an event in Milan.
Demaria refers to a feasibility study undertaken by the University of Genoa and the Bocconi in 2012 which resulted negative: nonetheless, she confirms the association’s will to collaborate on alternative strategies and to verify the feasibility of this kind of events suggested by Nautica Italiana.
Tacoli points out that the Genoa Boat Show will keep on being the main event for the sector in Italy, and all other events are not meant to be alternatives to it: Milan would be an opportunity to add a different event to gather attention on the sector.
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