Week 4

My first week in Italy has been very interesting. The transportation system in Italy is endemic to a lot of the problems that many of the people I interviewed in this first week have expressed with the Italian government and laws. After a canceled flight, a delay, and a redirected flight, though, I finally made it to my destination and the travel issues were almost worth it.

Putting my rant about transportation issues aside, this first week has been very productive. I have managed to get 8 interviews done this week, one of them being Daniel, the mayor of Amalfi. I have a lot more planned for this next week as well.

Regarding the issues I mentioned in the beginning, I thought it would be good to give a brief overview of the results of my interviews. While I have more on these points in my final deliverable, the general trend of the Italian perspective on tourism is that there will always be more people that want to come than there are businesses to cater to them. This is because the laws in southern Italy, specifically the region of Amalfi, prohibit new buildings from being constructed. Some laws limit the number of hotels in an area based on the population of the town. Like many rules and regulations in Italy, though, these laws are flexible based on the situation and how much the people overseeing these towns like you. For example, the law states that for every 500 permanent residents, Revello, a city of 2500 residents, has at least nine hotels listed on one of the first signs that you see as to drive into the town. Even with some discontent, everyone I interviewed, including the mayor, made it clear that they thought this was simply how Italy operates and that there was no changing it. There is a lot more that I’m excited to share, but I’ll leave it here for now. Thank you all for your continued interest in my project.