Slice of Italy

EVENT

Five Indian cities are set to enjoy a slice of good life, Italian style. Festa Italiana, which was organised first in Mumbai a couple of years ago, now has Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore on its radar.

"We're looking at new avenues to promote trade between India and Italy," says Andrea Bonardi, secretary general, Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The festival, showcasing "brand Italy" will start in Delhi from December 3. Last fiscal, the Indo-Italian trade was pegged at $2.8 billion.

"We want to bring the latest trends across diverse areas ranging from food to music to jewellery, and of course fashion," says Bonardi. Also part of the package will be an opera, film shows and interactions with a writer and a car designer.

The focus on more than one Indian city is partly due to the growing number of outbound Indian tourists (according to industry estimates close to 600,000 Indians are likely to travel abroad in 2004).

"At the moment Indian visitors to Italy is around 170,000 and is growing at around 20 per cent a year. We want to see this number go up substantially. For the Italian tourist board India is a strategic market," informs Bonardi.

According to him though business and individual Indian travellers visit Italy, group travellers tend to give it a miss, mainly because the Italian hospitality sector, unlike its counterparts in Switzerland and UK, is not geared to serve vegetarian food.

"But we hope to change this. Our plan is to invite select groups of journalists, tour operators and fashion designers to visit Italy," says Bonardi.

Italy is to be projected as a lifestyle destination and high on the priority list of invitees to Italy are filmmakers from Bollywood. In July this year a group of Hindi film producers/directors visited the country. Mukesh Bhatt is expected shoot a film in Italy next year.