National operator FS Group has established FS Treni Turistici Italiani to provide luxury and tourist focused train services.
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The new company was born with the mission of proposing an offer of railway services expressly designed and calibrated for quality tourism, sustainable and attentive to rediscovering the riches of the Italian territory.
A tourism that can experience the train journey as an integral moment of the holiday, a quality element of the overall tourist experience.
Three service areas introduced by FS Italian Tourist Trains:
Luxury, with the traction of the prestigious luxury trains, primarily the Orient Express la Dolce Vita, an Italian luxury train that will debut from 2024, or the legendary Venice Simplon Orient Express by Belmond, already operating on European itineraries;
Express and Historic Trains, with the introduction of new connections, including at night, on medium long range routes between the main Italian cities and places of significant tourist attraction (for example night or day trains from Rome/Milan to Calalzo/Cortina, San Candido, Milan Genoa with branches for Ventimiglia/Livorno; Rome Metaponto Catanzaro via Jonica and Reggio Calabria).
The connections offered with Express trainsthey will be made up of cars from the 80s and 90s which will be subjected to complete redevelopment and modernization interventions for exclusively tourist use in the Rimini railway workshops.
Workshops that will become a sort of refitting atelier for this segment, made up of cars capable of offering differentiated service environments (restaurant cars with express cuisine on board, sleeping cars, meeting cars, trunks for transporting bikes, skis and mobility vehicles sustainable).
FS Italian Tourist Trains will also manage journeys made with historic trains owned by the FS Foundation, in various regions and areas of historical landscape interest of the peninsula, with ad hoc programs and more regular frequencies, tours that combine the train journey with stops for guided tours, walking routes and tastings.
Omnibus Regionali, services that will guarantee the circulation of regional trains on weekends, at advantageous rates and accessible to all, on lines that cross territories rich in history, with villages and areas of scenic and naturalistic interest, distinguished by peculiar food and wine traditions and agribusiness.
Also in this case the planning of the trip, the stops and the timetables will be studied precisely in a tourist experiential key.
FS Italian Tourist Trains will acquire the assets and rolling stock from the Trenitalia commercial fleet which, following the modernization works, will form a fleet of Italian trains specially designed for the needs of tourists and which will also include religious tourism cars.
Furthermore, in a subsequent phase, the new company will acquire real estate assets such as workshops for overhauls, fittings and maintenance operations. It will have its own staff such as train drivers, conductors and maintenance workers, trained according to the new tourism standards.
FS Italian Tourist Trains will operate in synergy with the FS Italiane Foundation, which therefore remains the owner of a fleet of almost 400 historic and protected vehicles, and above all with the Business Departments of Trenitalia: High Speed, Intercity and Regional and the entire Passenger Hub of the FS Group.
It is estimated that in 2030 world travelers will reach 2 billion. Most of these tourists will choose Italy, with an increase in flows expected above all from Asia.
Italy is in fifth position in the world for the number of tourists with around 56 million international arrivals in 2022 and a forecast of over 75 million trips from abroad in 2023.
According to a recent study, carried out by the Bocconi University of Milan for account of the FS Foundation, every traveller, for 1 euro spent on the purchase of services on the historic tourist train, spends at least 1.50 euro and up to 3.18 euro on goods and services offered by the area crossed: a multiplier effect which will help generate wealth for the internal areas of the country. ■