2024 is confirming the post-pandemic recovery of tourism in Italy. The funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan are also giving strong impetus to the sector, but they are not always easy to obtain and use in the best possible way. The BCC Iccrea Group, the largest Italian cooperative banking group, comes to the rescue
2024 is proving to be a positive year for tourism in Italy: the growth trend already highlighted in 2023 and 2022 continues, after the stop in the 2020-2021 two-year period due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As summer approaches, the conditions for a good season for the sector are all there, confirmed by the long weekends of Easter, 25 April and the beginning of May, but also by the winter months. Confcommercio analyzes have estimated that in the first two months of the year a total of 13 million Italians took one or more holidays. Since they refer to the winter period, the data showed a clear preference for the mountains – this was the case for over 8 million people, with an average per capita expenditure of 350 euros – followed by the cities of art. The PNRR contributed to giving a strong boost to post-pandemic tourism, allocating 6.67 billion euros for the sector. However, it is not always so easy to seize opportunities. This is also why the BCC Iccrea Group, the largest cooperative banking group in Italy, among its sectoral specializations offers a complete range of products and services to support tourism and hospitality businesses, associated with the opportunities offered by the market and the PNRR itself.
Tourism and the PNRR
The almost 7 billion of the PNRR are allocated to increase Italian tourist and cultural attractiveness by modernizing infrastructures (tangible and immaterial), improving the usability of culture and tourist accessibility through digital investments aimed at removing physical and cognitive barriers and regenerating the villages, thus relaunching sustainable tourism and the protection and enhancement of historic parks and gardens. Added to this is the improvement of seismic safety, the modernization of the tourist offer with the redevelopment of accommodation facilities and the strengthening of infrastructures and strategic tourist services, the support of the digital and green transition in the tourism and culture sectors and the support of recovery of the cultural and creative tourism industry.
The BCC Iccrea Group helps seize the opportunities of the PNRR
The specialist offer of the BCC Iccrea Group for tourism is structured precisely by areas consistent with the logic of the PNRR. We therefore want to support companies, also with consultancy services, in intercepting the huge resources provided by the Plan. To do this you need to integrate them with the most appropriate solutions. Among these, the Group offers a loan with CDP subsidized funding, with a maximum duration of 15 years and exempt from substitute tax. The overall ceiling, of 250 million euros, is aimed at granting newly originated loans in favor of Italian SMEs and Mid-Caps operating in the sector through BCC Banca Iccrea, parent company of the BCC Iccrea Group, without prejudice to any guarantee by the Guarantee Fund for SMEs, SACE or other guarantors that allow zero weighting.
The FRI Notice – Tourism 2024
As mentioned, among the measures of the PNRR there is an incentive which aims to strengthen hotel facilities. The focus is on projects for digitalisation and environmental sustainability. The Ministry of Tourism, to allocate the resources still available with respect to the 2023 Call, is about to issue the FRI -TUR 2024 Call: the dedicated desk will be open for the entire month of July. Focus on medium-large investments, between 500 thousand euros and 10 million euros. Attention is focused on interventions such as energy and anti-seismic requalification, as well as on the elimination of architectural barriers. The deadline for the implementation of the projects is 31 December 2025. To make participation in the tender easier, the Ministry has provided the possibility for the proposing company to present, at the time of the request for assistance and as an alternative to the resolution of the Bank, a declaration made by the Bank itself certifying that the investigation is underway which must be drawn up according to the model that will be made available by CDP. In this context, BCC Banca Iccrea disbursed a single line of 300 thousand euros.
The Sustainable Tourism Thematic Fund
Then there is the Sustainable Tourism Thematic Fund, a financial instrument – again from the Ministry of Tourism – activated with the agreement between the European Investment Bank and the Mef for the recovery and resilience of tourism businesses, once again within the framework of PNRR. BCC Banca Iccrea is the representative of an endowment of the Fund for the granting of financing for strategic tourist infrastructures and services and for the renewal of the tourism ecosystem according to green and digital transition profiles, in line with the EU Green Deal. BCC Banca Iccrea can support – through repayable financing – an investment of at least 4 million euros, with the objective of covering 50% of the costs, and any working capital needs (if connected to the investment). For each individual company there is a limit: the financeable amount cannot go beyond 11.8 million euros. Just as there is also a time limit: the duration cannot exceed 20 years (except for working capital). Except for extensions, uses of the Fund will be granted by September 30, 2025.
The criteria for financing (and its advantages)
Preferential financing criteria for investments are envisaged. We look first of all at the feasibility of the projects: better if they are feasible in a short or predictable time. Then there are financial sustainability, attractiveness and their socio-economic impact on the territory and the contribution they make to the green and digital transition. For the tourism operator, the advantages guaranteed by the Fund are different, starting from the fact that it allows the sector’s gaps to be overcome with large capital, promoting access to credit and competitiveness in terms of environmental sustainability, innovation and digitalisation. The visibility intended for the projects supported by the Fund also represents an opportunity in terms of expansion and scaling-up, parallel to the possibility of being able to plan one’s long-term financial flows and costs with fixed rate structures and also on the basis of actual start-up foreseen by the intervention. Furthermore, the Fund’s resources are combined with all other forms of co-financing to support the spending project with flexible reimbursement profiles defined with the Institute based on the characteristics of the operation. Without forgetting the experience of the BCC Banca Iccrea team of specialists. So opportunities, visibility, stability and flexibility. Ceiling of 118 million euros.
Specialist consultancy
Tour operators who turn to the BCC Iccrea Group will also be able to count on a specialized financial consultant to work on strategic and financial planning in various areas, from the valorization of properties to the reorganization of the company organization chart. It also includes the evaluation of alternative financial instruments to financing: minibonds and consultancy on extraordinary operations such as acquisitions and sales of companies or business branches, generational transfers.
The BCC Iccrea Group
The BCC Iccrea Group is the largest Italian cooperative banking group, the only national banking group with entirely Italian capital and the fourth banking group in Italy by assets, with total consolidated assets – as of 31 March 2024 – standing at 171.5 billion euros. The BCC Iccrea Group today consists of 115 Cooperative Credit Banks, present in over 1,700 Italian municipalities with almost 2,500 branches, and other banking, financial and instrumental companies controlled by BCC Banca Iccrea.
As of 31 March 2024, the Group’s mutual banks had achieved approximately 90 billion euros of net loans throughout Italy and direct deposits of approximately 136 billion euros, counting 5.2 million customers and over 880 thousand members. The BCC Iccrea Group is among the best banking groups in terms of asset quality with a CET 1 Ratio of 22% and liquidity position with an LCR of 264%.
