“The research – explained Gianluca Cepollaro, head of TSM-Accademia della Montagna – explores the evolution of the professional figure of the refugee. A figure called upon to manage a complex task, which requires full time and requires advanced professionalism, often built over many years of experience. Trentino refugee workers demonstrate a significant sense of belonging to the profession and the territory and the willingness to face the changes taking place by getting involved personally and collaborating with the other actors in the system. A fundamental point of reference also for new visitors to the mountains.”
“The refuges – said Alessio Bertò, of the Tourism and Sport Service of the Autonomous Province of Trento – represent a privileged observatory of the dynamics and changes that affect the mountains and all those who frequent it. Listening to the voice of the managers helps us to interpret in a contemporary key the function of safeguarding the mountain territory that the provincial law recognizes in these structures: the refuges are sentinels of changes, but at the same time they preserve the role of custodians of the cultural and social values of the mountains”.
“The refuges – underlined Roberta Silva, president of the Association of Refuge Managers of Trentino – are par excellence the safeguard of the mountain territory in which they live, they are the outpost of the context in which they arise, the privileged observers of climate and cultural change which surrounds them, the facilitators towards the incredible heritage that our territory possesses, the bearers of knowledge of their mountain and they are family. The changes that we can observe both in terms of attendance and of an environmental nature, necessarily lead to having to find solutions to adapt structures and management, each within the limits of what is possible and achievable, and as has always been done to ensure that the aspects principals of protection and reception are never missing”.
The survey addressed the topic both from a quantitative point of view, involving 42 managers registered with the Association with a questionnaire, and from a qualitative point of view, meeting and interviewing 11 of them. The data collected homogeneously covers the provincial territory, touching all the altitudes, from 600 to over 3000 meters of the Cevedale and Marmolada refuges, and presenting the opinion of refugee workers who manage private structures, of managers of CAI-SAT refuges, of publicly owned structures.
To be able to cover the diversity of roles to be played, refugee workers must create a network, establishing contacts and relationships with the structures at the bottom of the valley and with the other refuges. Almost all managers declare that they have excellent relationships with colleagues. It is then essential to create a solid working group, which some managers call an “extended family”, surrounding oneself with valid collaborators, one refuge in three has at least 10 employees, so as to be able to deal with an increasingly numerous clientele with growing expectations regarding the quality of the ‘offer. In the majority of cases these are “specialised refugee workers”, professionals who have the management of the refuge as their only professional activity: two out of three work at the refuge and for the refuge all year round, even during the closing periods necessary for the organisation, maintenance and promotion of the business. The refugee owner is generally a professional with consolidated experience, a “historic refugee”, who in 70% of cases has been managing the refuge for at least 10 years. Despite the presence of young refugee refugees, the average age of the refugee refugee exceeds 40 years: the most represented age group is between 50 and 59 years old. 50% of the refugee refugees interviewed carry on a family business, are “refugees by birth”, who try to combine family and passion for the mountains.
As for customers, the managers declare that they are meeting more and more “new tourists”, especially occasional trekkers, bikers and runners. What pushes customers towards the refuges is mainly the interest in the landscape, the food and the possibility of staying overnight in a unique context, but there is no lack of interest in the environmental, geological, naturalistic aspects (over 60% of the customers) and the historical and cultural ones of the territory (over 50%). It is in the face of this multiplicity of interests and expectations that the refugee must be, at the same time: expert interlocutor of the mountaineering universe (according to 92% of the questionnaires), witness to the culture of the territory (90%) and profound connoisseur of the place (still 90%), as well as tour operator (83%) and reliable person capable of being a possible point of reference for safety (66%). The complexity of the refugee profession is reflected in the refuge (understood as a building and surrounding space) which performs different functions: catering, accommodation, information point, arrival or departure stop, rescue point. Trentino refuges seem to support these functions well, in fact, only 31% of managers declare that the refuge in which they work needs significant changes, 60% declare they want small changes, 9% do not want changes.
The aspects in which we need to invest the most, say the Trentino refugee workers, are linked above all to education in frequenting the mountains, correct communication and professionalism. This is how the refuges can continue to be an extraordinary cultural heritage, a garrison of the territory, a reference for the enjoyment of high altitudes and for the promotion of a widespread mountain culture.
