The Veneto Region – Prosecco’s Hill
The Veneto Region – An introduction.
The Veneto Region is one of the twenty Italian regions with a population of around five millions inhabitants. Placed in the north eastern part of Italy Veneto is one of the most developed and industrialized regions. Having one of the country’s richest historical, natural, artistic, cultural heritages. In the Veneto Region are also located several UNESCO Heritage Sites. Typical of Veneto are the local industrial clusters (so called Districts regulated by specific laws). The regional industry is especially made of small and medium-sized businesses, which are active in several sectors: leather and footwear, food, wood and furniture, textiles and clothing, gold jewellery, but also chemistry, metal-mechanics and electronics. This has led to the establishment of a strongly export-orientated system of industries.
Though being a heavily industrialized region, tourism is one of the main economic resources of Veneto. One-fifth of Italy’s foreign tourism gravitates towards Veneto, which is the first region in Italy in terms of tourist presence, attracting over 60 million visitors every year. Venice is the capital of the Veneto Region and a worldwide recognised tourism destination. The regional administration of the Veneto Region (Regione del Veneto) and its affiliate bodies have been frequently invited to participate to transnational programmes and projects dealing with cluster policy with the aim to share experience and good practices. With reference to the programming period 2007 – 2013 the Region del Veneto plays a pivotal role. It is also managing the Italian Contact Point for the Central Europe Programme. Moreover, Region del Veneto is LP of several EU funded projects.
The Economic Promotion and Internationalisation Department of the Regione del Veneto is in charged of coordinating and supervising all the projects, proposed by local enterprises through regional consortia and business categories, aiming at enhancing regional products promotion in foreign markets. It has the key role of supporting the secondary sector through specific focused activities related to: promotion and territorial marketing projects, identification and qualification of regional international and national fairs, support the export consortia, internationalisation service to the benefit of local SMEs in the secondary sector, support to local touristic organisations. Thanks to its cross sectoral role the Economic Promotion and Internationalisation Department of the Regione del Veneto has a leading role in the management of specific initiatives able to combine industry, culture and tourism.
Lead Partner of the CMC Project the Department represents and promotes a wide range of territories and stakeholders and promotes their valorisation and competitiveness growth. In particular within the Project the Department strongly cooperates with local key industry sectors: the footwear cluster of Riviera del Brenta and the valorisation of the surrounding areas and their beautiful villas, the Sport system cluster of Montebelluna, the Prosecco wine cluster of Valdobbiadene and wine route, the Gold and Silver cluster of Vicenza, the Cultural Heritage Meta Cluster and the Eco-building cluster of Treviso. Moreover several local tourism consortia and other regional and local cultural and tourism associations have been involved by the Regione del Veneto in the project through a strong bottom-up approach.