The beach establishments in Campania will be classified with stars based on the services offered. Just like it is done for hotels. This is foreseen by Puad, the plan for the use of maritime state property areas for tourist accommodation purposes.
A classification that beach resorts have been asking the Puglia Region for years. Among the major proponents, Fabrizio Santorsola, regional president of Fiba, the Italian seaside federation.
We receive from him and gladly publish a speech on the topic:
Dear director,
I am writing to express my disappointment towards a regional administration that too often acts only on the surface rather than acting in a concrete manner.
The triggering cause for me is quickly explained.
In 2018, with the unanimous consent of the entire regional council, a law was passed that classified the beaches with stars in the same way as hotels, classifying the structures based on the services provided.
It was the right response to that media campaign which systematically saw negative comments on the web relating to the excessively high prices applied in our region. To those tourists who thought they would arrive here and pay with beads, hoping to find people with nose rings, the most effective response would have been to certify the quality of the services offered.
Unfortunately, the law was blocked by the trade union organizations that manage the beaches near the large centres: these structures, which work almost exclusively with subscriptions, therefore had no reason to add a Wi-Fi network to their services, “They have it at home, what’s the point?”, or hire multilingual staff, “My clients are all local: what’s the point of knowing English?”, and so on.
The law was blocked with a stratagem wanted by those who would have seen their structures declassified without indispensable services for tourists: in the last council session of the last legislature, the same councilors who had acclaimed it absentmindedly voted for the modification that paralyzed it .
Then, with the excuse of the Bolkestein directive which did not give certainty of continuity to our concessions, the union opposing the law, a very strong organization in the region, managed to maintain the blockade.
Then came COVID with all the related problems, and it was decided once again to keep the classification firm.
Then it was time for recovery after the pandemic and the excuse was good to continue to keep everything still.
When, at a certain point, I raised the issue in numerous conferences directly and personally to the regional tourism councilor, he replied several times that it is not possible to apply such a system because it is a prerogative of the central government.
My answer has always been peremptory, because all this has no correlation in reality: it’s not true. Even the European Community with the HOTREC system which classifies the various forms of the hospitality industry would have acclaimed such a program; HOTREC would probably have lowered from above “an umbrella” the system of classification of services in the beaches in all EU countries, leaving however to us the birthright of this intelligent way of doing a seaside business.
Now we discover, but I already knew well in advance, that the Campania region copied our system and applied it by regional law: from next year the Campania beaches will have the classification based on the services provided to customers, with all due respect of us Apulian seasiders who stand by and watch.
