Preserving the Authenticity of Food and Wine festivals: the case of Italy

According to UNESCO, food and wine festivals are part of the intangible cultural heritage: during festivals product knowledge is spread among participants and local communities and local products become a powerful tool for disseminating the culture of a place. For many years in Italy there has been a growth in the number of food festivals and new actors, attracted by profits, got in the business of culinary events. The result has been a proliferation of festivals that are not “authentic”, offering products that do not originate from the area where events take place. This situation can seriously damage the territory by affecting its credibility, arming the carrying capacity, and by compromising the authentic tourism attractions and the exploitation of local economic resources by rural communities. After having introduced the role of typical food and wine in the development of an authentic tourism experience, the paper describes the recent case of the national agreement among public administrations, trade and hospitality associations and local farmers to develop some codes of practices to discipline the complexity of food and wine festivals, by adopting food safety principles and preserving environmental, historical and cultural authenticity.