Veteran tour guide Elisa Valeria Bove poses for a photo at the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, Dec. 16, 2020. (Photo by Franco Bizzantino/Xinhua)
ROME, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- Veteran tour guide Elisa Valeria Bove is betting big on Italy's tourism sector making a comeback once the coronavirus pandemic runs its course.
Bove, who worked as a freelance tour guide for a decade, decided this summer to buy the main tour agency she worked for -- Roma Experience, when it was on the brink of closing down for good.
The decision, she said, was counter-intuitive. Almost every business that depends on tourism in Italy -- not just tour companies, but airlines, hotels, restaurants, bars, and souvenir shops -- has seen business drain away in recent months. According to data from the World Travel & Tourism Council, the lack of tourism sparked by the pandemic is costing Italy as much as 100 million euros (122 million U.S. dollars) per day, impacting some 2.8 million jobs nationally.
"Some people thought I was crazy to buy a tour agency during a pandemic, at a time when there are almost no tourists," Bove told Xinhua. "But I know the tourism sector will come back and the agency will be there when it does."
Bove said Roma Experience started to see tour cancellations even before Italy announced its first coronavirus cases in late February. The last tour the company conducted before Italy went into a national coronavirus lockdown was on March 6. The company did not conduct another tour until July when three Americans living in Switzerland came to Rome during the period when the coronavirus infection rate was low and health rules were eased.
"Overall, the estimates are that the country will see 90 percent fewer tourists this year, but for companies like mine the impact has been even larger since we focus on international travelers," Bove said, adding that the majority of the small number of tourists who have traveled in Italy since the start of the pandemic have come from other parts of Italy. Bove said most of Roma Experience's clients come from other parts of Europe, or further afield, including Australia, China, Russia, and the United States.
Still, that did not stop her from taking control of the company during the pandemic. Her acquisition included the company's name, mailing lists, website, its reputation, and hundreds of vouchers for entry to many of the country's best-known attractions, such as the Colosseum.
Bove speaks four languages herself, and the company has hired fluent speakers to conduct tours in other languages.
"There will be fewer tour companies left once the tourism sector starts up again," Bove said. "I made a calculated decision if I didn't do anything. The agency would close and I'd have no work. Or I could make an investment and be ready once things started. I'll start small: if things start slow, which will probably be the case, I can do most of the guide work myself."
Bove, an avid traveler and self-identified history buff and food and wine lover, said she had moments of doubt since the start of the pandemic. But most of the time she said she is convinced she did the right thing.
With no tourists, Bove said she has more time to spend with her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Erin. But she's also working on revamping the company's offerings, focusing on more high-end tourism and adding more gastronomic offerings to the company's strong portfolio of cultural and historical options.
"I am proud of my country and I want to focus on showing what is the very best of Italy," she said. "These are the things that will be waiting for the first tourists once we're allowed to travel again." Enditem
