Lombardia Style. This is the new brand launched by the Lombardy Region to reposition itself according to a targeted territorial marketing strategy. A brand that encompasses different experiences, from culture to food and wine, from sport to fashion, and that says a lot about Lombardy's ambitions to respond in a big way to the new trends of 2024, also thanks to the results of last year.

“With almost 51 million presences, +16.8% compared to 2019, 2023 was a record year,” comments Barbara Mazzali, Councillor for Tourism, Territorial Marketing and Fashion of the Lombardy Region. “Foreigners accounted for 65% of the total, but even more extraordinary are the more than 5 million digital footprints from which a sentiment of 85.6/100 emerges. Thanks to the prolonged winter season, the first part of 2024 registered a 10% increase and we are expecting to see growth in the summer too, mainly thanks to foreigners”.

This, often, also thanks to a luxury and high-end proposal, for a traveller seeking to forge an increasingly engaging emotional bond with the territory. “We are aiming to create experiential tourism that enhances the 'Lombard lifestyle', going beyond Milan,” Mazzali continues. “Identity is a key element for developing the narrative, valuing excellence, such as outdoor tourism, business, religious tourism, but also the uniqueness of the territory, its places of art and rural landscape”.

A narrative that, thanks to new tools and new languages, aims to enhance the uniqueness of local communities, also to respond to the challenge of overtourism in the most popular destinations. “We intend to enhance the supply of the territories also to encourage the deseasonalisation of the flows and respond in part to the problem of rising prices by focusing on luxury, a niche that represents 3% of the country's GDP,” concludes the Councillor.

The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics are on the horizon, which, according to ConfCommercio, will already bring about the full recovery of the international tourist flows in 2024, and then continue over the next two years.

Lombardy will be one of the spearheads of the Italian offer at the exhibition, as always represented extensively at BIT 2025 and at fieramilano in Rho from 9 to 11 February 2025.