Italian
Cavallino Treporti is the first Italian beach to be a smart tourism destination
Venice – Cavallino Treporti, the beach overlooking Venice, is the top destination in Italy for tourist arrivals, surpassed only by major art cities like Rome, Venice, Milan, and Florence, and ahead of other important seaside destinations like Rimini and Jesolo. To plan the future of tourism, data, strategic vision, and appropriate tools are essential.
It is from this awareness that the project Smart Tourism Destination HUB was born, promoted by the Municipality of Cavallino-Treporti in collaboration with CT Servizi and with the support of Consorzio Parco Turistico, Assocamping, and FAITA, aiming to guide the local Destination Management Organization (DMO) towards a model of intelligent, sustainable, and increasingly accessible tourist destination.
The project, born from the regional call DGR n. 1639 of 22/12/2023 – Action 1.2.4 and won by the Municipality through CT Servizi, aims to enhance the visitor experience and the capacity for local governance through innovative ICT-based solutions, promoting access to services, products, and experiences, while enhancing the cultural and creative heritage of the area. A structured path in two phases: the first dedicated to defining the executive plan and integrating the DMS into the stakeholders’ sites; the second focused on the digital upgrade of the destination, the analysis of Big Data, and the evolution of the portal www.visitcavallino.com, which had already implemented elements of the metaverse through a previous call.
Territory and technology
The heart of the second phase is business intelligence, a mapping of the tourism ecosystem, analysis of flows, benchmarks with similar destinations, and monitoring of web reputation. This is complemented by concrete tools on the territory, such as information totems with QR Codes at points of interest and an indexed camera in weather apps to provide real-time information on weather conditions and traffic.
“The project is part of a path initiated before the pandemic and now relaunched thanks to new research and surveys among operators – explained Francesco Berton, president of Assocamping –. The data that emerges is essential to understand the evolution of employment, investments, and the organization of facilities, and to measure how tools like Smart Tourism Destination are strategic for the territory.”
For an increasingly tourist economy
The analysis presented by Luca Romano from LAN provides an image of a destination where tourism and commerce are the true economic engine. In a demographic context marked by an aging population – a phenomenon affecting all of Veneto and Italy, Cavallino-Treporti sees the weight of the tourism sector growing in the employment balances of the area.
From a numerical perspective, the location confirms its place among the top in Italy for tourist attendance, surpassed only by major art cities like Rome, Venice, Milan, and Florence, and ahead of other important seaside destinations like Rimini and Jesolo.
The open air sector employs nearly 4,000 staff in total, including permanent employees, seasonal workers, and external collaborators. The average duration of contracts has increased from 5.7 to 6.6 months, indicating a longer season and greater job stability. There is also a continuous increase in permanent contracts, linked to the dual seasonality of the facilities, both tourist and related to maintenance and investment in modernization. The months of employment in key services such as lifeguarding, beach cleaning, green maintenance, security, and public services are increasing.
Particularly significant is the data on investments, which shows a shift from 85-90 million to over 120 million euros in the five years following Covid. A trend that demonstrates the desire to maintain high quality standards and strengthen the international competitiveness of the destination, driven mainly by the German and Austrian markets.
Cavallino Treporti
In support of strategic decisions, the Cavallino Data HUB is born, a data platform that evaluates tourist flows detected through mobile phones, performance of the open air sector, spending behaviors through the Mastercard network, and vehicle traffic through TargaSystem data.
“The value of data – explained Mattia Enzo, president of the Tourist Park Consortium – lies in the ability to plan more consciously, understand who our visitors are, what they appreciate, where we can improve, and when tourist pressure is highest.”
The sentiment for camping reaches 85.3, an increase compared to 2024, and predictive analyses already show a booking level between 50 and 60% for summer 2026, especially around the holidays of foreign markets.
“The challenge for the future is not only technological but cultural,” adds Enzo. “Platforms offer an enormous amount of information. The real question is selecting what we want to know to better manage the development of the territory.”
Cavallino-Treporti thus aims to be an advanced laboratory of smart tourism, where data, sustainability, and quality of life become strategic levers not only to attract visitors but also to make the area increasingly livable and competitive in the long term.
A location that in the month of November officially became the first seaside destination in the Mediterranean basin to obtain the international GSTC (Global Sustainable Tourism Council) certification, confirming the path taken by the administration and the local community towards a model of responsible, innovative, and shared tourism development.
Thanks to an increasingly advanced use of technology and the integrated analysis of heterogeneous and in-depth data, Cavallino-Treporti is today investing wisely to consolidate its role of excellence, consistently remaining at the top of the rankings of the most appreciated, competitive, and beloved tourist destinations in Italy and Europe.
“The results that Cavallino-Treporti is achieving are a great source of pride for the entire community and demonstrate how shared work can generate concrete value – commented Mayor Roberta Nesto –. The numbers of tourist arrivals and the certifications obtained confirm the leadership role that our locality has built over time. We continue to innovate with vision, keeping the balance between economic development, environmental protection, and social sustainability at the forefront, with results visible to all.”
