The international tour operators participating at the TTI (Travel Trade Italia) Rimini workshop for the marketing of Destination Italy are asking for more flexibility and highly personalised products. In a nutshell: the Internet.

Italy finds itself once again in the dock, accused of being excessively rigid when it comes to what it is offering and also out of pace with the times. What the 470 international tour operators at the Rimini Fiera from 14th to 15th October for the TTI (Travel Trade Italia) workshop organized by TTG Italia, are asking for is a more creative country which is capable of providing faster and flawless answers to the needs of the single client.

The demand from abroad for tailor-made tours and stays is becoming increasingly more determined and consistent, forcing suppliers to pay more attention to modular products. We only work online and do not have any pre-printed brochures because our products are highly personalised, says Sandro Gilioli, spokesperson of the American tour operator MyItalianVacation.

The New York-based Leisure Hospitality Marketing channels its programmes only through the web. We are a travel agency specialised in spa holidays, visits to art exhibitions, sporting holidays and cooking and Italian language courses. And so the holidays we offer have to be modelled on the specific needs and interests of each single client and the web guarantees more elasticity, explains president Bernard Bauer, who will be at the TTI workshop looking for ways to make his travel packages experiences in closer and more direct contact with the local populations.

Apartments, agritourism properties, B&Bs, hotels of charm and villas are the most sought-after kind of accommodation by foreign visitors who find them the ideal way of satisfying their desire for autonomy. However this satisfaction is not reflected in the quality-price ratio which is only very rarely in line with their expectations. The food is good, but the staff is not very professional and the service is bad, says Joerg Fischer, product manager of the German company Siglinde Fischer, and from Hungary his words are echoed by Karoly Neuhold, who confirms a growth of requests for higher quality products at competitive prices.

From Eastern Europe the request for personalised offers goes even further than the product itself, involving also the price to the applied to Product Italy, a price which, according to local tour operators, should be gauged to the true spending power of those markets. Our clientele consists for 70% of individuals who mostly book apartments while the remaining 30% are groups who prefer 3-star hotels and half board, says Dorata Tomsia, spokesperson of the Krakow-based tour operator III Millennium. Services and transport are organised according to the specific needs of each traveller or each group and this is why it is increasingly more important to be able to book online and find more elastic products and prices which allow us to keep the demand at a high level even in the high season and, in particular, in the month of August when prices are so high that they squash the demand.

The desire for free and easy holidays is also growing in the middle and lower income brackets for which the Lithuanian operator Globe, based in Riga, is planning Italian camper holidays. And once again in this case the paper brochure has been abandoned in favour of a more versatile web site. And from the other side of the world comes a similar philosophy. We don`t print brochures because this is the only way to guarantee a truly tailor-made product, says Cecilia Artoni, manager of the Peruvian operator AcTours.