ISTAT. CALABRIA STILL FAILED! ISTAT, FUCK YOURSELF!!!
The nine-column Gazzetta del Sud had the headline yesterday: “TOURISM: CALABRIA STILL FAILED”. The bolt: “The system only holds on domestic flows. Hope on new flights”.
The article begins with a sentence: “Calabria is still off the tourist routes”. Almost the entire domestic press was forced to highlight the dramatic new data provided by Istat on the 2023 tourist season. These data are merciless towards our region. While a historic record is recorded for Italian tourism in 2023 which recovers the pre-Covid flows in almost all Italian regions, Calabria is one of the few regions that recovers almost nothing and which records a good -18 compared to the flows of 2019. 3%. We are the first… if we read the ranking backwards. We are last, in second to last place we have Basilicata with -15%, third to last Campania with -8%.
Let’s not even talk about foreign arrivals which represent only a small part of the tourist flows to our region. Let’s face it: they are satisfactions. It’s a shame that to date we haven’t had any comments from Roberto Occhiuto, president of the Calabria Region, as well as Councilor for Tourism, as well as Commissioner for Health, as well as vice-president of Forza Italia, as well as… as well as… as well. Nothing to do, a man always spare in expressing satisfaction and pride for the results of his tireless work, in almost three years of tireless presidency.
Not everyone can be the worst when it comes to spending and wasting the European community’s money like crazy in a continuous, daily media campaign, tending to exalt the new face of Calabria, the new narrative that has received so much acclaim in Italy… but what am I saying in Europe, or rather in the World… better yet in the Universe. We would just like to recall the main events that led to this success. The basis of the success of the new Calabrian tourism policy is to be identified in the brilliant intuition of the map of 100 identity markers.
When the duo Occhiuto and Orsomarso presented this idea they said that we were faced with a real Copernican revolution. They added that it would be a project that would accompany us in future years. To be honest, they didn’t tell us where this idea studied by who knows what marketing company through well-paid consultancy would take us. We in our poor ignorance wrote that just by hearing the word markers people ran away from doubting whether it was a football player like Rosato or the branding of a herd of calves or sheep. And then our Robertino and Fausto said to each other, it’s better to have more than less. 10 scorers? But let’s not joke, 20… 30… 40, let’s make 100 markers that people will come from all over the globe.
But it doesn’t end there, the second great idea was that of Land of the fathers with a site frequented by a few close friends and with ambassadors, certainly exquisite people, but who nobody knows. And what’s more, we suspect that not even the testimonials of this initiative have seen the commercials with their testimonies, something of a unique pallor that makes anyone flee or fall asleep. Naturally, our two experts said to this great relaunch plan, it was enough to give it an exciting name and that’s it. Here is EXTRAORDINARY CALABRIA and people will flock to Calabria in droves.
And in fact, to corroborate this great relaunch plan we have had the success of major events, we could say the legendary events that the Region has financed with a splash of 200 thousand euros each. But you want to put the arrivals that were there for the Magna Graecia Festival of the legendary Casadonte, during the week of the festival all the hotels and tourist villages of Catanzaro and surrounding areas, full… or rather packed… show that we are in abundance. All Hollywood stars looking for a holiday know they can turn to our Gianmelo. And this year big arrivals, big names, lots of pants pay.
And we cannot forget the other great events from the autumn festival, to art harmonies, passing through the Carcuri literary prize. All strictly regional initiatives, with the exception of the grandeur of the Magna Magna Festival, which was attempted to pass off as a national tourist attraction to justify the wealth of contributions made. Naturally we cannot forget the splendid stands of the Calabria Region in tourist fairs all over the world, starting from the Bit in Milan, to that of Rimini, to Berlin, Madrid, Paris. All traveling around the world to make Calabria known.
However, the crown jewel of 2022 remains the ICE PALACE in Milan where we spent a couple of million to entertain the Milanese and save some money for the Lombardy Region which thanks us again for the excellent Christmas 2022 and the happy New Year 2023 that we gave to our fellow citizens.
Thanks that still come to us from Raul Bova, his wife and Gabrile Muccino for the author’s commercial created a few years ago and which then led to the creation of that other great commercial “Verso sud” with the great Elisabetta Gregoraci that no one has never seen. Naturally the media at the time glorified these false triumphs and extraordinary successes, with enthusiastic comments for each of them, here is the new Calabria, everyone is talking about us, Calabria is the protagonist, Calabria is booming. We have always more modestly talked about smoking, about lack of planning, about Robertino da Cusenza’s blah blah blah and foaming and foaming at the mouth. Here is one of our many interventions: https://www.iacchite.blog/
But we are certain that in a few days, having forgotten the Istat data, our president Rubertino da Cusenza, a cazzaro from Calabria, will catch his breath and announce new and extraordinary plans. Now our great hope is called Ryanair with its 4 flights from Reggio Calabria. We can already imagine the arrival of Spaniards and Albanians in Reggio Calabria. And then we have great expectations for Sandokan which is being filmed in the studios of Lamezia Terme. The Calabria Film Commission, another money-sucking sideshow. you’ll see in a few years what a splash it will make with its cinematographic citadel. Roberto Benigni had a similar idea a few years ago with Umbria studios which was saved by the acquisition of the studios by Cinecittà.
Until the new New Year’s Eve 2025 with the announcement of the new venue and after with the daily bulletins of full houses, great enthusiasm, Calabria at the center of world attention. Then once the limelight is turned off, no one will remember New Year’s Eve in Calabria, as happened in Crotone, and then the new ISTAT 2024 data will arrive which will be worse than this year. Oh yes, because tourism in Calabria for the 2024 season did not benefit from the New Year’s Eve in Crotone. It was flat and has remained flat. Furthermore, the dark clouds of the failure of the FTI in Germany are gathering on the horizon. We hope that a tsunami will not be unleashed which will also overwhelm our region and will not lead to a further decline in foreign arrivals in Calabria.
