THE WORLD OF TOURISM HAS A NEW HUB: BIASSONO & BRIANZA

Original Italian Text here

Bilateral trade opportunities offered by Expo2015 are knocking on the door, but not only the town of Biassono is ready to collect them in Brianza. This year, six are Province’s municipalities (Sovico, Macherio, Biassono, Vedano al Lambro, Lissone, Desio) which have joined the tourism promotion festival "Osculati’s compass", second edition of the successful initiative proposed by the cultural association "GaetanoOsculati", in collaboration with Altrimenti.net. 

The project to host in Biassono’s Villa Monguzzi 10 training sessions, curated by the national tourist boards in Italy every Monday night, from the 13th of April, is succeeding in an extremely difficult challenge till today: going beyond the limits of a fragmented and often parochial promotional policy (as evidenced by the still hesitant Monza city, refusing to join the initiative of the "small" Biassono), in favor of an area where Province’s troubled affairs have failed to achieve its huge potential. In terms of tourism, culture and trade. 

"Osculati’s compass doesn’t aim to provide only professional and qualified information on the latest trends in the travel’s world - organizers explain - but also wants to create a unique opportunity to facilitate the internationalization of Monza&Brianza’s territory. On invitation of the supporting mayors, the calendar of this year is just the first step of a project which will develop two other milestones: a great work-shop allowing the public to compare Brianza’s territorial offer with the international one during Expo’s months, then a subsequent road-show that will helps the National tourist boards to be hosted in Brianza and weave direct relations with all the involved municipalities. These three steps will create a collateral tourist hub out of Milan, finally enhancing the resources of one of the richest areas in Italy".

Show’s opening will be Slovenian Tourist Board’s business (April the 13th, h.21), followed by the colleagues of Visit Cyprus (April the 20th, h.21) and PromPerú (27 April, h .21), thus leaving space Polish national board’s and Intercrac Dmc Krakow’s coworker Pawel Jeglinski (May the 4th, h.21), starring among others a second evening dedicated to Estonia (May the 18th, h .21) by appointment of VisitEstonia and Lithuanian Tours. But the "compass" will also rotate towards African horizons, thanks to the intervention of Maurizio Levi as a representative of the Ministry of Tourism in Sudan (May 11, h.21), as well as the Kenya Tourism Board (May 25, h .21) and South Africa Tourism (June 8, h.21). In the end a leap from wild Australia presented by Tourism Northern Territory, arriving symbolically to the navel of today’s world: the Big Apple of New York City & Company. 

After involving nearly 500 spectators in the first edition last spring, the event proposed by the cultural association "Gaetano Osculati" - not coincidentally named after the great Biassono’s explorer who discovered Rio Napo’s springs in Brazil - is ready to double its public . The vocation to the journey of the association is an hallmark since the beginning of its activity, that has already built a solid network of contacts and collaborations with national museums dedicated to the history of Italian explorers. On the other, thanks to the success of many cultural researches, it has become a point of reference for local tours (almost 150 members in the last two visits to Milan "On witches’ and Inquisition’s footsteps ", in the calendar May 3), both abroad (registrations for the tour about Battle of Waterloo’s bicentenary are still open and it will take place during the first week of July, in collaboration with the Belgian office for the tourism Brussels - Wallonia).

Strong of contacts and strategic plans guaranteed by Altrimenti’s collaboration, Brianza has now all it takes to enjoy Expo2015’s best opportunities (starting from May the 1st to October the 31st), whose brand is worth almost € 600 billion according to the estimates of Monza&Brianza Chamber of Commerce. In particular, if Lombardy’s enterprises expect an increase in their turnover of 8 billion euro, 40% seems destined to go right to the production industry extra-Milan, with a return of at least 500 million euro in Brianza. Not surprisingly, to better convey the commercial potential of the event, it has been established "Brianza@expo2015", a business oriented association for the promotion of the territory inside Expo, alongside "ANCIperExpo", its counterpart at the administrative level. But there are many ramifications of local initiative: from the 27th of part September to October the 5^th, the excellences of the territory were put on display in "Expo Brianza" fair, besides being able to count on the support of the media portal "iBrianza" and the web-hub "Brianzapiù", Tourist office of Brianza region and Larian Triangle. Together with the project "Meet Brianza Expo", dedicated to the promotion of art, design and green, as well as of "ProgettoscuolaExpo", for the formation of the student world on the guiding theme "Feeding the planet / Energy for the world", the big challenge is to be able to combine now all of these partners into one synergistic system. At that point, however, Brianza will require a decisive turning point in the hospitality industry: on its territory there are today only 61 hotels (of which 26% only are 4 stars), although the area can count on 891 extra-hotels rooms (of which 30% in excellent B & B and residences, among which the new arrivals "Luna di Monza”, “Park Residenze Monza” ed “(H)at home"). Biassono’s kermesse, therefore, is responsible for opening a common way, so that Brianza can be again that "land of delight" able to seduce writers, artists and brilliant entrepreneurs around the world for centuries.