After last year’s success, with the start of the 2024 cruise season, which on Sunday 9 June will see the first call in Taranto of “Fascinosa”, one of Costa Crociere’s most beautiful ships, the tourist reception service will restart again this year “Welcome to Taranto”, curated by Confcommercio Taranto and created in collaboration with Taranto Gran Tour and the patronage of the Municipality of Taranto.
A service that in the past season was appreciated by cruise passengers who chose to visit the city of the two seas independently. The Confcommercio tourist info point, manned by multilingual staff, was in fact active throughout the 2023 cruise season and carried out free reception and tourist information activities.
With something new. This year the info point was located near the eastern gate of the port, making it even easier to reach and accessible for those arriving in Taranto on board a cruise ship. And this morning, Friday 7 June, was the inauguration day of the colorful wooden house built by Confcommercio and already a destination for some tourists who asked for information and collected the multilingual map with the city plan.
“Welcome to Taranto is a project in which Confcommercio believed from the first moment, so much so that it wanted to support Taranto Grand Tour, another significant initiative,” commented Mario Raffo, provincial president of FederModa Confcommercio and delegate for Welcome to Taranto. “Tourist hospitality is fundamental for us – added Raffo -. We need to start from the basics to grow tourism. You can’t wait for the tourists to arrive first and then offer the service.” The times in which cruise passengers will be able to access the info point will coincide with those in which the cruise ships will stop in Taranto: from 8.30am until lunchtime.
For all the pieces of the puzzle to fall into place, that is, for the welcoming of tourists to be followed by an accompaniment along the beauties of the city, “we need to create a system and have a well-defined vision of the objectives we want to achieve”, he immediately put the dots over the “i” Leonardo Giangrande, president of Confcommercio Taranto. “If the focus is the old city – added Giangrande – we need to work immediately to reconvert it, I am thinking of the presence of many more people, craft shops and typical restaurants, because by doing so the island can also become functional for the Borgo , via D’Aquino and via Di Palma. This is why – the president of Confcommercio then concluded – it is important to push towards the redevelopment of the old city. But to do this we need a broader vision and understand which actors need to be brought around the table. It being understood that the time we have available is short.”
Old city on which Taranto Grand Tour is focused through “continuous listening – specified Fabrizio Iurlano, president of the association – of the needs of the territory. What we need to do is work even harder on tourist training and hospitality.” Partner of the “Welcome to Taranto” project is the Municipality of Taranto which intended to support Confcommercio “especially following the positive feedback from last year”, deputy mayor Gianni Azzaro, present at the inauguration together with councilor Angelica Lussoso, was keen to point out . And the tourism table set up by the municipal administration, added Azzaro, “wants to go precisely in this direction: to put together proactive ideas that make Taranto an important destination for tourists and cruise passengers”.
Kyma Ambiente will ensure dedicated services such as, explained the president of the municipal company Giampiero Mancarelli, the cleaning of the area where the info point is located “which will be integrated with the activities that we carry out on a daily basis both in the old city and in the Borgo. An extraordinary commitment to welcome tourists in the best possible way.”
