Buying a Business in Italy. Tourism Businesses

There are many opportunities to start a new business in Italy. Although the bureaucracy may at times be a little daunting, you have quite a lot in your favour – you speak English, you know about marketing to non-Italians and you can look objectively at how things are currently done and think of ways to improve. (We hope!)

Tourism Business - Accommodation

Italy is the 4th most visited country in the world and all those visitors need services. The tourism industry is a lucrative one. Even in credit crunch times, people still go on holiday.

Little wonder that the dream of many ex-pats is to move to Italy and open their own holiday business. One consideration is that there may be government funded renovation grants available if you intend to open your home to the public, something to bear in mind if you have your heart set on a picturesque ruin. But these grants come with strings attached (no money up front for one) and so don’t rely on one for funding.

Apart from owning a hotel or simply renting out a vacant property to tourists, there are three main types of holiday accommodation in Italy - a B&B, a country house and an agriturismo, loosely defined as farm holiday accommodation.

B&B

This is probably the most straightforward business in that you require no special permissions, as long as you keep the business small (depending on which region you live, in a maximum of between three and six guest rooms) and that you live in the house yourself and don’t open all year round. (If you do, you will need to charge iva – VAT) Just let the town council (comune) know what you are doing and how much you intend to charge. A B&B is required to supply breakfast, but what this constitutes depends on the regional laws.

Agriturismo

Agritourism brings in over 600 million euro a year to Italy and represents 15% of the country’s tourism industry. Over half the country’s agriturismi are located in the central part of Italy. Growth is massive, over 83% between 1998 and 2007, and the region considered the sector leader is, unsurprisingly, Tuscany.

Agriturismi accommodation is in the farm itself or a separate building. It ranges from a room to a whole building (eg a converted outbuilding) and there may or may not be a separate restaurant attached. This business is considered a valuable extra income stream for farms and quality varies.

The rather vague law relating to what constitutes an agriturismo changed in 2006 and now the earnings from the rental part of the business must not exceed those of the farm side of the business and the hours spent on the rental side must no more than 50% of the time spent on the agricultural side. Growing DOC, IGP and DOP quality produce is encouraged. This has basically put a stop to any Tom, Dick or Alfonso renting rooms for extortionate rates in his ramshackle family house and calling it a farm holiday.

In short, to run an official agriturismo you need to be a real farmer and to offer your guests food and even wine produced on your own farm.

Country House

Given the restrictions as to what constitutes an agriturismo, the alternative is to open a country house or country house hotel. Basically this is a house in the country offering accommodation in rooms or apartments. A Country House does not have to be on a farm and does not necessarily have to supply meals from home grown or local produce, although some regions stipulate the produce should be locally sourced.

You may also see a business designated as a mixture of the three types, for example Country House and B&B.

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