PDO economy increasingly leverages tourism: events to grow by 26% in 2025
Qualivita Foundation report: 667 activities mapped in 2025 of which 292 events including festivals, tastings, cultural festivals and sports organised by 376 Protection Consortia
PDO tourism is growing and strengthening, i.e. initiatives and, therefore, tourist flows in areas where PDO food products are produced: from cured meats to cheese, from fruit and vegetables to wine. Basically, phenomena similar to wine tourism are spreading and consolidating in other quality food chains in Italy.
As many as 667 activities in the production areas of PDO and PGI brands were reviewed in 2025, with a year-on-year growth of 12%. Events - including festivals, tastings, cultural festivals and sporting events obviously linked to a PDO or PGI product - totalled 292 with a growth of 26%. Also noteworthy are the 60 'first editions 2025', a figure that confirms the PDO and PGI system's planning momentum with initiatives that also involve smaller supply chains.
These are the data released by the II DOP Tourism Report realised by the Qualivita Foundation in collaboration with Origin Italia (the association of consortia for the protection of DOP and IGP products).
"The survey," they explain at the Qualivita Foundation, "based on 2025 data, highlights a concrete and widespread strengthening of PDO tourism initiatives on Italian territories, a result that confirms how the sector has promptly acknowledged the indications of theEuropean Regulation 2024/1143 that has included the management of tourism activities among the competences of the Consortia. This is an evolution also favoured by a greater knowledge of the phenomenon, a growing public interest and a renewed attention from the institutions, the world of research and the actors of the PDO PGI system. Prominent among these new elements of development is the recognition of the Italian cuisine as a Unesco heritage site, in which PDO and PGI are not mere ingredients, but cultural and productive pillars'.
At a territorial level, growth is witnessed by a higher number of activities compared to 2024 for 16 Italian regions out of 20. Veneto, Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy and Piedmont are confirmed at the top of the regional classification of PDO Tourism that integrates more than 20 indicators taken from the PDO Tourism Observatory and official sources. The decisive factors are confirmed to be the presence of solid production chains, a consolidated tourist attraction and, above all, structured and recognised protection consortia capable of playing an active role in territorial governance.
