The Disciplinary of the Quality Mark

The Itineraries of the Heart (Itinerari del Cuore) Italian Quality Mark is a project established and promoted by BITESP, the International Experiential Tourism Exchange, a reference event for experiential tour operators which takes place annually in Venice. The decision to offer localities and operators in the sector the possibility of acquiring the certification of an Experiential Tourism Italian Quality Mark and of aggregating them in the associative form of Product Clubs is used to differentiate and distinguish the experiential tourist offer in an innovative way , combining it with a quality criterion.
Thanks to the organizational strength deriving from the network of operators, it becomes an effective tourist promo-marketing tool that offers an important competitive advantage and also allows small companies to access promotion channels that would otherwise remain closed.

The recipients of the project are: municipalities, localities, hotels and accommodation facilities, tour operators, travel agencies, incoming operators, tourist guides, experience providers, agri-food and food and wine companies, wineries, restaurants, museums, artisan companies, commercial activities, etc.

By adhering to the project, requesting the certification of the Quality Mark, experiential tourism operators must accept the new challenge coming from the tourist demand which requires an authentic and quality experiential offer that respects the norms and quality standards imposed by the Mark Disciplinary of Quality and which involves the defense of the artistic heritage and the protection of the environment of the municipalities, at the same time undertaking to optimize the organizational processes of the experiential tourist offers.

Statistics confirm that in choosing their holidays, the tourist puts first the guarantee of the quality of the tourist packages and the interest in buying travel experiences capable of satisfying their desire to live a unique, authentic experience and exciting, with total immersion in the territorial reality.

The Quality Mark specification is the guideline, shared by all participating operators, which contains the rules to be followed, the quality standards to be observed and the operating procedures required to acquire the Quality Mark certification and join the Club of Product.

In particular, the Itineraries of the Heart project requires acceptance of the following points, included in the Regulations:

from the vocation to experiential tourism, to compliance with the quality standards of the tourist offer
from the defense of the artistic heritage and the landscape, to the protection of the environment of the municipalities.
from sharing sustainable tourism to promoting slow tourism
from the reception service to the quality of the accommodation facilities
from the organization of the experiential proposals, to the offers of the territory
from the creation of quality experiential tourist packages to customer satisfaction.

The rules included in the specification must be approved and shared by all the operators who want to join the project, to demonstrate that their tourist offer complies with the quality requirements present in the Quality Mark specification as a guarantee for the tourist consumer.

The main purpose of the Quality Mark is to recognize operators who put the quality of the tourist services provided, respect for the environment and the quality of the tourist experience lived by the customer at the top of their business.

The Quality Mark with the relative Product Club provides interested operators with an information and training service aimed at optimizing the experiential tourist offer which includes online meetings and seminars to facilitate organizational adaptation to the quality standards set out in the specification, including possible consultancy for the creation of tourist packages.