Home » Minister Garavaglia at the Skipass show: “A fundamental mountain for the country: it’s time to go back to skiing with serenity”

Minister Garavaglia at the Skipass show: “A fundamental mountain for the country: it’s time to go back to skiing with serenity”

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«With serenity and shared rules we return to skiing. I hope it opens on December 4th. Then if anyone wants to open first, his goodness. The important thing is that you go back to skiing safely ». The Minister of Tourism Massimo Garavaglia spoke at the Skipass fair of winter tourism in progress in these days at the Modena fair does not mince words. And the fact that he wanted to attend what traditionally is the event that marks the start of the ski season was already a good sign. Especially this year, in the edition that celebrates the restart of the sunken white mountain due to the pandemic for a year and a half, there has been a stop to the ski lifts and amateur skiing.

“You can finally breathe an atmosphere of enthusiasm and desire to start over – commented the minister at a public meeting together with FISI president Flavio Roda and the number one of the ANEF plant engineers Valeria Ghezzi, that is to say the general states of the snow planet with that of the masters of ski -. The missed winter of 2020/21 caused the loss of 10 billion GDP. We can no longer afford it. It was necessary to change our attitude towards the mountains, and so we did ».

In Modena, Garavaglia illustrated the new tourism decree contained in the PNRR, intended to make available to tourist facilities the figure of 2.4 billion direct, which becomes almost 7 billion with financial leverage. «In the budget law – he specified – there is a fund dedicated to the mountains, which is a fundamental sector for the entire country system, and it is finally understood. As the Ministry of Tourism we have just proposed a package that concerns investments, in general, for the whole sector. There is also a slice that concerns the mountains, a fund for sustainable development of 500 million, but which with the financial leverage effect is worth a billion and a half: there operators can draw on to improve the quality of their plants. The budget law also provides for a fund for the development of small mountain towns, to prevent them from becoming depopulated ».

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Words that sound like a symphony for a sector that in the last 20 months of hiatus has suffered very heavy losses and which in many cases is still waiting for the refreshments approved by the government. It is now a matter of days, the minister assured the plant engineers, “even if there is a bureaucratic issue with regard to the cable cars due to the transcription error of the Ateco code of the activity – Garavaglia wanted to clarify -. The mountain is made up of serious and tough people, who never asked for anything. Now it is up to the rest of the system to restore trust to a world that has suffered so much. I thank the plant managers who managed to manage a very difficult situation also from the point of view of maintenance in the months of closure. Now it is up to us citizens to fill the slopes with responsibility so that the mountain supply chain returns to invoicing safely. What we have to give is a message of extreme serenity: the road is downhill, then whoever wants to make it free will make it free, whoever wants to do the slalom will do the slalom ».

The protocol for the safe opening of ski resorts prepared by mountain operators and approved by the Regions is still formally awaiting final approval by the government, even though Minister Garavaglia in Modena said that “that’s fine”. As is known, the guidelines provide for access to the slopes only with a green pass, except for children under 12 years of age: for those who are not vaccinated, a negative swab is required. For indoor facilities (cable cars, gondola lifts and chairlifts with lowered windshield dome) the capacity would be reduced to 80 and it is mandatory to wear a surgical mask or ffp2. On ski lifts and chairlifts the capacity would remain at 100%, since there is no evidence of contagion in the open air. No limit to the sale of ski passes in the white and yellow areas, with an incentive for online ticket sales.

The problem to be solved still remains that of how to check the green pass: at each passage at the turnstile, on a sample basis or one-off when purchasing the ski pass? The president Valeria Ghezzi has no doubts: «The checks must be carried out on a random basis, possibly by the police in the stations where they are present. Otherwise it becomes chaos for us installers, also for privacy reasons. In this regard, we appeal to skiers so that there is also a responsibility on their part, as well as on our part, in making sure that everything works for the best ».

Flavio Roda also agreed, who took the opportunity to recall how «skiing during the pandemic nevertheless continued to work thanks to the stations that allowed us to carry out the competitive activity of ski clubs and the World Cup. In the last season about 8000 sporting events were carried out, maintaining the basic activity that could have been wrecked. The stations have had a double damage: they have opened up to the sports world without having any income, and we want to thank them. As Federsci we are close to the whole mountain system: through our events we would like to give them the greatest possible visibility also in view of the 2026 Winter Olympics ».

In closing, Garavaglia also wanted to emphasize the importance of sport as a lever for tourism, and on how “it is important to make the country system known in terms of tourism promotion”. “Last year – explained the minister – we were considered one of the countries most at risk from the point of view of contagion. Today Italy is perceived as one of the safest nations in the world from a health point of view. This is important because foreign investments go to safer destinations. After an excellent summer at high altitude, we expect an excellent winter season, especially for Italian tourists, but we also expect a recovery of foreign ones. It being understood that we must find a common way of dealing with the vaccine issue: I am thinking of the British who, in many cases, have only one dose. But we will surely find a square ».

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