Economy - published on 06 September 2024
Source: office of studies and statistics of the Chamber of Commerce of Treviso - Belluno|Dolomites
Treviso, September 5, 2024.
President Mario Pozza’s comment
Our provinces, Treviso and Belluno, are rich in history, culture and natural beauty – comments the President of the Treviso-Belluno Chamber of Commerce, Mario Pozza.
We have the Dolomites, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2009, with a series of unique mountain landscapes of exceptional natural beauty. Exactly ten years later, in 2019, the Prosecco Hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene were added to the Unesco sites, an initially rugged landscape that the ingenuity and skillful work of man have been able to shape over the centuries, creating an environment where nature and human activity blend harmoniously, creating a landscape with characteristic mosaic features. In the province of Treviso and Belluno, there are numerous Venetian villas. Three of these villas, designed by Palladio, are included in the Unesco list of protected properties: Villa Emo in Fanzolo di Vedelago, Villa Barbaro in Maser, and Villa Zeno.
In Treviso and Belluno you can visit the birthplaces of great artists such as Titian, Canova and Giorgione and admire their works. We have museums that recount the successes of our entrepreneurial history (such as, for example, the eyewear museum and the one dedicated to the boot and sports shoe).
Sharing with the community, this heritage of inestimable value, is a reason for social growth and fosters a sense of identity and belonging to the territory.
The presence of cultural and natural beauty also creates attractiveness and expendability from a tourism perspective. And tourism is an important lever to support our economy and is an opportunity for visibility for our businesses.
It is from these premises that we thought it would be useful to delve into the dimension of the cultural and creative supply chain in the provinces of Treviso and Belluno. It is an extended supply chain, which includes public entities, nonprofit organizations, private companies; which also brings economic benefits to other productive sectors-reflects the President.
Suffice it to think – Pozza continued – that, according to some studies, for every euro made by cultural and creative enterprises, 1.8 are activated in different sectors, such as tourism, transportation, and the made-in-Italy industry, for example. In Treviso and Belluno, the cultural and creative system generated almost 1.8 billion: this is an estimate, which corresponds to about 5 percent of the total added value of the two provinces.
With regard to the perimeter of activities, the report prepared by our Study Office focuses on the whole chain consisting of private companies that, according to the main/prevalent economic sector, carry out an activity of the “cultural” or “creative” type as defined by Istat, which considers as cultural activities those dedicated to the conception, production and distribution of cultural goods and services and as creative activities those that employ and use cultural knowledge and content as input for the production of goods and services that are not purely cultural but have a distinctly innovative or original content.
Based on this perimeter in the province of Treviso there are more than 4,400 local units, including headquarters and dependent branches, to which more than 18,000 employees refer. In Belluno there are almost 830 local units employing 2 thousand people. It is a supply chain that sees a slight increase in the number of activities compared to June 2019 (+22 in Treviso and +18 in Belluno, respectively). Growing, in particular, are those referring to the creative component (especially communication and design for Treviso and crafts for Belluno).
As a Chamber of Commerce – the president continues -, we are also in the front line in promoting our heritage, both natural and cultural. We do this by acting on several fronts, with actions that aim to govern the lever of tourism in a coordinated and sustainable way and by supporting initiatives that enhance the beauty of doing business through the beauty of our territory.
We have an active participation in the Treviso Marca Foundation and the DMO Dolomiti Consortium, which are important for promoting our territory in a coordinated way and with a long-term strategic vision.
We also think it is essential to invest in the training of new generations and in innovation. We have active collaborations with ITS Academy Turismo Veneto, to equip young people with the right skills to intercept, and satisfy, the new trends that see the tourist increasingly digital, attentive to sustainability and in search of destinations and experiences outside the known circuits. We have targeted actions in the area of job orientation and we contribute to the GenerAZIONE2026 project, aware that it represents not only an opportunity for young people to grow educationally based on the values and spirit that animate the Olympic and Paralympic Games, but it is also, in view of the Milan Cortina 2026 appointment, an opportunity to promote the cultural, artistic and entrepreneurial excellence of Belluno and Treviso.
In the end – Pozza concludes – we have chosen to support those initiatives that allow visitors to immerse themselves in the rich artistic and cultural history of our territory. Many are well-established events, others are novelties: “The red thread between Arrigo and Leonor: Arrigo Boito and Eleonora Duse,” “The Titian summer” with the enhancement of Titian’s places, “Art and music between Pelmo and Civetta,” the “Kite Festival” in the lake of Santa Croce, the “Sounds of Marca” in the bastions of the walls of Treviso.
The Cultural and Creative System: driver of the growth of the entire economic system
The Cultural and Creative System has been the subject of study for several decades now, because it is considered a creator of knowledge and innovation, a facilitator in the transmission of knowledge to the entire economic system. It also fosters, in the local community, social development and the creation of a sense of identity and belonging to the territory.
It is a system that touches different spheres and for this reason, although studies on the subject abound, not easy to perimeter in activities. Fondazione Symbola takes as a reference the activities defined in the “Green Book of Culture (UNESCO)” to determine especially those falling under the cultural industries sector, while Istat has recently worked on a methodological note that also defines in more detail the activities referable to the creative sector of the system.
This report draws on these analyses (by Fondazione Symbola and Istat) to estimate the economic value and size, in terms of enterprises and employment, of the cultural and creative supply chain, in particular, in the provinces of Treviso and Belluno.
Overall, the Italian Cultural and Creative Production System is valued at 95.5 billion euros. This figure, estimated by the Symbola-Unioncamere Foundation for the year 2022, represents 5.6 percent of the total national value added realized during the period. Veneto contributed almost a tenth of it: it is 9 billion, or 5.4 percent of the total regional economy. In Treviso this sector is worth 1.5 billion euros (5.3% of the total provincial economy) and in Belluno the value is estimated at 253 million euros (corresponding to 4% of the total).
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