The activities to be carried out concern the promotion and tourist enhancement of cultural and natural attractions concentrated on the tourist areas of Apulia. The actions will focus on tourism products consistent with the regional reality and its territorial potential, including through the promotion of local tourism systems and “product clubs" characterized by thematic and territorial specializations.

All the interventions will be concentrated in the areas of Apulia which are relevant for the tourism industry, i. e. the destinations (such as “systems of attractors") identified by the regional tourist planning acts, in order to allow an improvement of the tourist products: Gargano and Dania (priority tourist products: active tourism, slow tourism, seaside tourism); Puglia di Federico Il (priority tourist product: art and culture); Bari and the Coast (priority tourist products: M. I. C. E, cultural tourism, seaside tourism); Valle d'Itria (priority tourist products: luxury and exclusivity, rural tourism, seaside tourism); Magna Grecia, Murgia and Gravine (priority tourist products: cultural tourism, rural tourism, seaside tourism); Salento (priority tourist products: cultural tourism, events and entertainment, seaside tourism).

The actions of “destination marketing"; will be coordinated and framed within an overall strategy of “territorial marketing"; (which also includes the promotion of Made in Italy and the attraction of investments). The reasons for “buying"; a territory (for a holiday or a business trip, for native products, for a productive investment) largely coincide and relate to a complex of material and immaterial values of the territory and the ability of the latter to represent itself in a consistent and convincing way.

Examples of activities:

• Promotion interventions in intermediate markets (business to business), aimed at refining and selecting the forms of tourism promotion in these markets according to demand, as well as activating the match between supply and demand. Activities will be carried out such as BtoB workshops, organization and/or participation in events and trade fairs and industry initiatives at national and international level, educational tours and familiarisation trips. These activities are aimed at promoting the marketing of Apulian tourist products in targeted markets and to capture the new trends in the sector through direct contact with operators in the tourism demand and mediators of international flows.

• Communication interventions of the regional tourist offices (business to consumer). The activities include, for example, media-planning, road shows, co-promotion, co-branding, production of online and offline content and tools for the management of the Puglia brand and its reputation through the strengthening of information, interaction and sales channels accessible, in particular, to “do-it-yourself" tourists, favouring segmented and targeted promotion techniques, selecting the segments of demand with the highest potential for sustainable growth and the most innovative and differentiated tourist products. These interventions respond to the emerging trends in the tourism market which see, on the one hand, the impetuous growth of one-to-one purchasing processes and innovative and direct sales channels, also in light of the greater opportunities offered by new information technologies, and on the other hand the emergence of new forms of communication that allow to increase the visibility and knowledge of the destination. –
• Activity of involvement of operators of the supply chain (product clubs) for the sharing of promotional and marketing strategies, such as, for example, organization and dissemination of market information, demand analysis programs, monitoring of brand reputation and network listening systems, bottom-up planning systems, creation of product brands and other measures aimed at innovation and raising quality standards to protect tourists. These activities are aimed at equipping the tourism system with analysis and monitoring tools, both for the orientation and the sharing of public strategies and for the adaptation and renewal of production systems and distribution channels.
• Interventions to enhance and strengthen the regional tourist offer and organization of Local Tourist Systems. These interventions promote, in the LTS, the collaboration between bodies for the implementation of common policies of government of the territories such as tourist destinations and the management of cultural and natural attractions in a systemic perspective. The actions of enhancement of the offer will act, for instance, on the reception, the extension of the schedules of the main sites in the periods of greatest influx, the raising of the quality and differentiation of services related to the use, accessibility and information on attractors, the definition of thematic routes, the improvement of public services available to tourists, the planning of activities, etc.

Beneficiaries: Puglia Region, public bodies and administrations, businesses, GAL Meridaunia.