The key points
- “The means are there and are available”
- The numbers of the sector
- Returning hope to businesses
Over 24 thousand tourist buses, spacious and safe are ready to start the engines for transporting students to school, without the risk of crowding and contagion. The proposal is contained in a letter that the chairman of the committee Italian tourist buses (Co.Bti), Riccardo Verona, sent Enrico to the ministers Giovannini (Sustainable infrastructure and mobility), Massimo Garavaglia (Tourism) and to the president of the Conference of the Regions, Massimiliano Fedriga.
The sector, the letter reads in a nutshell, by making its own means available, could contribute on the one hand to the solution of the emergency in school transport and on the other hand to restart a sector in very serious crisis, which the pandemic has completely blocked.
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“The means are there and are available”
Verona says: «The reopening of schools requires choices for safe and pluralistic transport, which can no longer be postponed. The means are there, there are over 24 thousand, of which over 10 thousand are in the Euro 6 or Euro 5 category, green and compliant with anti Covid security protocols, as well as the economic resources to start coaching. We are there and our drivers are ready to work, rather than remain in layoffs, at the expense of the state.
The numbers of the sector
The tourist bus sector in Italy counts 6 thousand companies, over 25 thousand workers and, limited to the rental section, an annual turnover of over 2.5 billion euros, of which 80%, i.e. 2 billion, has been lost from the beginning. of the pandemic. This concerns only the year 2020. With the first half of 2021, the estimated loss of turnover is approaching 3 billion.
Verona continues: “The tourist bus sector was one of the first sectors to stop, after the first confirmed case of Covid in the city of Codogno (February 2020, ed). The cancellations of school trips, the main source of income for the sector in the spring months, weighed first, then the closure of the borders and the consequent stop of tourism. From around 2.5 billion euros billed in 2019, we have gone to around 400 million in 2020, with a loss of around 80% ».