Now more than ever tourism needs sustainable innovation to find a new dimension after the pandemic. And that’s also backed up by data. According to the Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo (Digital Innovation in Tourism Observatory) drawn by the School of Management of the Milan Polytechnic, in 2021 88% of accommodation facilities have used at least one digital tool to manage processes, while 77% of the businesses have equipped themselves to manage smart working employees by offering in-room workstations (48%) or screens for video-conferencing (43%). In 2021, the overall Italian Travel market (online + offline) grew both in the accommodation component (9.5 billion euros, +73% compared to 2020 and close to the 10.3 billion of 2019) and in the transport component (8.5 billion, +33% compared to 2020 but still far from the 18 billion pre-Covid).

For this reason BIT 2022, which will be held in April at fieramilanocity from Sunday 10 to Tuesday 12, and which has always been a pioneer of tourism innovation, has decided to focus even more strongly on this aspect, by dedicating the rich schedule of events organized by Business International to the theme "Bringing Innovation into Travel", divided into 4 macro-areas: Food Travel, Travel Lab, Hot Topics and Travel Tech, to which will also be added Sustainability as a transversal theme for all areas.

Food Travel will deal with sustainable food and wine for the enhancement of the territory, proposing events such as “Food and wine tourism, more green, more inclusive and social”. The Hot Topics area will address the issue of relaunching the tourism sector in view of a post-pandemic scenario, also focusing on “next generation” topics such as space travel; and in parallel with Travel Lab it will also highlight the greater professionalism of operators: fundamental in this regard will be meetings such as “The metamorphosis of business travel: strategies that are dictating the recovery” and “The future of hospitality learning". Technology is now an indispensable reality for tourism and Travel Tech will be the demonstration of how the new tools will support operators, not only by guaranteeing maximum security to the guests, but also and above all the safeguarding of economic sustainability. Sustainability itself will be the new macro-area set up by BIT Milan, a social and environmental theme discussed in the meeting “Travel as an ethical approach to the territory and its resources”. Given the growing and necessary demand for smart working, it becomes essential to relaunch the business travel sector through the phenomenon of “digital nomads”: the purpose of the meeting “Bleisure and new dimensions of travel with an approach that respects biodiversity”, is to encourage remote working for those who work while travelling.

The BIT 2022 schedule will complete an exhibition area that sees the presence of Italian regions, international destinations and the main players in the sector. Therefore, the appointment to relaunch tourism will be at fieramilanocity from 10 to 12 April.