Jubilee, meal vouchers for pilgrims and a virtual assistant for getting around the city

"Thanks to an important partnership, there will be a system of meal vouchers available to all pilgrims, who will be able to use them in dozens of restaurants and bars at a particularly advantageous cost". This is how the president of Confcommercio Roma, Pier Andrea Chevallard, announced yesterday the initiative promoted by Fipe, the Italian Federation of Public Establishments, in view of the Jubilee 2025, which will open in the capital on 24 December. The objective: to combat the habit of eating packed lunches, which has suffered in many other cities of art, from Florence to Venice, where it has been banned, on pain of heavy fines, in the entire area around St Mark's Square. On the same day, at the Rome leg of Microsoft's Ai Tour, Julia, the platform that will serve tourists arriving in Rome during the Jubilee, was presented.

Chevallard's announcement on 'capped' meal vouchers took place yesterday at the Campidoglio during the ceremony for the 80th anniversary of Confcommercio Roma, in the presence of the president of Confcommercio, Andrea Sangalli, and the city's mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, who is also extraordinary government commissioner for the Holy Year, and Monsignor Rino Fisichella, Pope Francis' delegate to the Jubilee, in the audience together with the new vicar of Rome, Monsignor Baldo Reina. There is full agreement between the Vatican and Confcommercio on the need to enforce the rules, combating squatters and dishonest people. "Rome with the Jubilee has an extraordinary opportunity that must be seized together," said Sangalli. "Confcommercio is doing its part, also because from what world is the world where faith does not arrive, manager arrives'.

In addition to meal vouchers at 'lowered' prices, Chevallard anticipated another move by Confcommercio. The premise: 'We sign with the trade unions Cigl, Cisl and Uil the largest contracts applied by companies in the service sector and tourism, also setting up a bilateral system at the service of companies and workers with supplementary institutes of health service, supplementary social security and contractual welfare'. For this reason, the association will present a 'Jubilee Protocol' that, Chevallard explained, 'will intervene on some legislative and contractual institutes necessary to make work and service more competitive and sustainable, in view of this special year for our city'.

Everything, however, on one condition: that the timetable is respected. "The completion on time of the works in the pipeline for the Jubilee," said the president of Confcommercio Roma, "will be decisive in strengthening trust and optimism in citizens and entrepreneurs towards the future of the capital. The best reception, next year, of the millions of visitors announced is an opportunity to show a Rome that is not only beautiful, but also internationally reliable. A city that, at last, respects deadlines in the realisation of public works and procedures that allow private investment and quality of urban life. A Rome that, with ambition and determination, wants to become what we all desire: an efficient city, open to the future, technologically advanced, international'.

The Roman businesses of Confcommercio recognise that 'Rome needs a shake-up: we have certainly felt a change, but there is still much to be done,' Chevallard added. Detailing the progress, of course: 'We are aware of the disastrous situation in which the mayor and the council have found Rome's public transport, and of the work that is being done to maintain the infrastructure and purchase new buses, trams and trains for the metro lines. We appreciate and encourage the start of the procedures for increasing taxi and rental car licences, although we would have liked more courage. The courage that there was in starting the construction of the waste-to-energy plant: an indispensable and long overdue infrastructure'.