📝 COVID event and refreshments in Rome 📖 🎥 📎

I want to tell you about an experience that, although short, left a deep mark on me: the event for tour operators held in 2021, right in the midst of one of the most difficult periods ever faced by the sector because of Covid-19. Never before had the world of tourism been brought to its knees as it was during that time. Even Thomas Cook & son, the first travel agency in the world, has closed its doors after more than 100 years of activity.

While restaurants and shops could somehow survive with home deliveries or takeaway, for travel agencies and tour operators there was no alternative: the shutdown was total, without exceptions.State aid, when it eventually arrived, was slow and insufficient to cover months and months of inactivity.

The demonstration in Rome was meant precisely to give voice and dignity to all those forgotten companies, to claim rights and concrete support for the Ateco codes related to tourism, too often ignored.

I remember the emotion of seeing travel agents, agency owners, tour operators, guides and escorts from all over Italy, united by a single goal: to make themselves heard, to ask for respect and attention. It was moving to feel a genuine solidarity among professionals who, beyond competition, shared the same difficulties and the same love for their work.

What struck me the most was the order and civility of the demonstration: no disorder, no problem, just the strong will to be listened to.

I also remember the surreal atmosphere of "armored" Rome, with the 10 pm curfew,  streets already deserted by late afternoon and an abnormal cold that made everything even more spooky.

I respected the curfew effortlessly (on that single occasion), also because with such freezing weather and not a soul around, there was no real reason to stay outside. It was strange, almost unsettling, to see iconic places like the Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum completely empty, images that will remain forever etched in my memory, so different from those of the lively Rome I had experienced in the past . You can read the dedicated article about it.

Looking back today, I realize how much the world has changed in such a short time and how important it is to carry on the lessons of the pandemic, both as people and as operators in the sector.

Now we are preparing to face a new post-Covid era, hoping that certain lessons will not be forgotten and that tourism will finally return to being the engine of encounter, growth and freedom that we have always loved.

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