The new law under discussion in the EU on tourist guides? It doesn’t displease all the operators in Lucca. Indeed, there are those who consider it an indispensable tool for “defining the profession” of tourist guide. If anything, the problem is that the new legislation arrives with a certain delay. To support it is Giada Paolini, tourist guide and advisor to GTI Italian tourist guides, a national trade association.
“Lto law 190/23 that reform of the tourist guide profession is making headlines, it is no wonder – observes Paolini -: it is since 2013, the year in which free provision was introduced on national territory, the topic has been discussed and there have been those who have immediately opposed a necessary reform in every way. If the national validity of the tourist guide qualification had been recognized years ago, we would already have a law on the profession, certainly better than the current one and not bound to the Pnrr, which has heavily influenced the choices of governments. To slow everything down came very strong and anachronistic vetoes from some trade associations.”
“Considering the world of tourism, its evolution, the European regulations and directives – continues Paolini -, opposing the national guide made no sense yesterday and it does so today and for this reason GTI has always fought to follow this path in order to have a decent law. Luckily she arrived and, despite the ministerial decrees that make changes, some key points have been maintained: the qualification with national value, the national list, the planning of exams with well-defined methods of carrying them out on a national scale and the certainty of the path to follow for the transfer of guides qualified abroad to Italy. The absence of unity towards the national guide has led to the phenomenon of qualifications taken abroad and the spread of illegal practices due to the lack of new guides due to the qualifications having been stopped for some years. It was rather decided to continue an infinite and exhausting story which has maliciously left the profession in chaos, a profession which hundreds of young people have not been able to access for years, also due to the absurd spite of those who continue to ask for a return to local leadership”.
“We continue to praise the territorial guide as the only source of true knowledge – says Paolini -, which is offensive towards people who have a strong professionalism and who prepare, study and carry out inspections before accepting a job. Every now and then it would be nice to get out of the parochial mentality of ‘I live there and therefore no one will ever be like me’. A valid and prepared guide will always be able to enhance the place where he works. I would also add that a valid and prepared guide should not fear competition. To those who say that the exam will never be in-depth enough – he continues – it must be remembered that the work of driving is done by continuous updating and study, therefore in addition to the exam on a national scale the professional will always continue to study in depth to improve. It is then necessary to add a further obviousness: the fact that the guide, thanks to the law, can operate throughout the national territory does not oblige him to do so, the professional will then decide based on his own needs or predispositions where he will be able to perform the best guided services. It continues by saying that the linguistic level is lowered. Have we perhaps forgotten that until it was possible to take exams for the qualification, only a foreign language at level C1 verified during the exam was required?”.
Paolini then takes inspiration from some considerations by Gabriele Calabrese of Turislucca on the topic: “In my colleague’s opinion, the consequence of this law will be hit-and-run tourism. On what basis can such a statement be made? Hit and run tourism – Paolini claims – probably occurs in a place where there are not enough or adequate services and which does not make an effort to increase people’s stay, for example: high cost of the checkpoint without discounts for those who stay longer days, increased tourist tax, public toilets insufficient to cover the whole city, areas of the city (Porta Santa Maria) completely cut off from tourism due to the absence of bathrooms, info points and accessibility problems at the unloading point, tourist maps given with the dropper. Before blaming a speck, therefore a law that did its best to reform a profession that needed it, let’s look at home, very large beams could be discovered.”
Lucca, tourist guides on a war footing. Calabrese: “With the new law this profession is debased”
