The new era of nautical tourism. Boat holidays transform into a tourism segment and a business opportunity for the industry

Nautical tourism, boat holidays, and marinas are increasingly becoming the focus of tourism enhancement and promotion, with the definitive affirmation of the economic and touristic value of recreational boating and the consequent consideration of ports and tourist harbors as genuine accommodation facilities and gateways to destinations.

The development of boat holidays as a response to new leisure trends, strongly linked to experiential forms of consumption, contact with nature, sustainable tourism, and slow tourism, requires greater and immediate regulatory, economic, and tourism promotion attention. It also needs the integration of various components of nautical tourism (marinas and tourist harbors, nautical service companies, rental and charter companies, etc.) with other classic components of the tourism offer. All this, not without a further stimulus to the creation of "local" itineraries and marina-territory packages that increase and improve the reception of nautical tourists.