Veneto, a land of patrons of the arts: every euro spent on the Art Bonus generates up to 5.64 euros

The multiplier effect increases significantly as cultural flows grow: with a 5 per cent rise in visitor numbers, the return rises to 2.88 euros for every euro invested; with a 10 per cent increase, it reaches 4.26 euros; in the most optimistic scenario, with a 15 per cent increase in arrivals, the economic return can reach up to €5.64 for every euro spent. In 2021, a record year for Art Bonus payments, the report estimates a total economic impact of over 24 million euros even in the baseline scenario, i.e. assuming no changes in tourist numbers.

The quantitative survey – conducted by Impact Srl on a panel of 179 businesses spread across all the provinces of the Veneto region and supplemented by 66 face-to-face interviews with entrepreneurs and company representatives – provides a snapshot of a phenomenon that has reached full maturity: stable, growing and increasingly integrated into corporate strategies. The survey methodology was developed from 2012 onwards and has been refined through successive rounds of data collection.

As a result, Veneto is Italia’s second-largest region in terms of the number of businesses active in supporting the arts and culture (123 companies), with this figure rising among firms with a turnover exceeding 50 million euros. The regional cultural sector generates added value of 9.4 billion euros, accounting for 5.3 per cent of the entire Veneto economy, and employs almost 146,000 people — 6.1 per cent of the Veneto workforce.

Over 50% of the companies in the panel have increased the resources allocated to corporate philanthropy; almost all of them state that they intend to maintain or expand their commitment. The most common investment bracket is under 5,000 euros per year (44%), but the intermediate brackets are growing — a sign of increasing maturity. Finally, in terms of size, SMEs account for over 90 per cent of the Veneto region’s business sector, and corporate philanthropy remains a widespread phenomenon, not limited to large companies.

The sectors receiving the most support are: live entertainment, heritage restoration and conservation, exhibitions and cultural events; these initiatives are becoming less and less one-off and increasingly integrated into corporate strategies.

The main recommendation to emerge from the survey is the establishment of a permanent observatory on corporate cultural patronage in the Veneto region – the first in Italia to offer this level of methodological consistency and local roots. Not a monitoring centre, but a knowledge infrastructure: a platform accessible to businesses, cultural institutions and public decision-makers. The Observatory can serve three groups: businesses, for strategic guidance and benchmarking; cultural institutions, to understand business logic and develop collaborative projects; and public decision-makers, to design and evaluate cultural policies using up-to-date and comparable data.

“It has always been known that Veneto is a land of patrons,” said Maria Cristina Gribaudi, cultural adviser to Confindustria Veneto. “What we did not know was the exact scale of the phenomenon, nor its underlying characteristics. When Confindustria Veneto launched its first mapping exercise in 2016, we discovered that 90 per cent of patrons came from small businesses and that the main motivation was, quite simply, a desire to give something back to the community in which they lived and worked. These figures have changed our understanding of the region. In 2024, through our Corporate Culture Unit and with the invaluable support of Intesa Sanpaolo, we resumed the project with a new ambition: to establish a permanent observatory on corporate patronage. ‘Culture is not a luxury: it is a driver of development, and the figures confirm this unequivocally.’

And according to Valeria Mantovan, Councillor for Culture for the Veneto Region, ‘The figures presented today confirm something we in Veneto know only too well: culture and the economy are not separate worlds; they feed off one another to generate economic, social and cultural value. - Our region has an extraordinary cultural heritage — in terms of its scale, quality and deep-rootedness — and a business community that recognises it as a real asset, not merely a decorative feature. Businesses in the Veneto are fully aware that investing in culture also means investing in the competitiveness, attractiveness and growth of the region in which they operate.”