Milan is one of those cities that can be made a much more interesting tourist destination through things like experiential tourism, and that is especially true this year. It will be the 500th year of Leonardo da Vinci’s death on 2 May 2019, and Milan is one of a myriad of cities putting on a host of events to celebrate the great Renaissance polymath, and of course, attract more tourists. Milan will be a great location for experiential tourism in 2019 and we at Artès already have many experiential tours based in Milan.
Experiential tourism with Leonardo da Vinci in Milan
2019 marks the 500th anniversary of the Leonardo’s death and the city of Milan is putting on a multitude of events to celebrate this anniversary so the city will attract an influx of tourists keen to celebrate the great artist. These tourists will obviously want to explore various different aspects of Milan, so it represents a great opportunity to offer your clients experiential tourism packages. First of all, Artès experiential tourism packages cater to the tourist interested in culture, history, and getting to know the local area, but also provide a means of tourism that avoids the tourist traps jam packed with hordes of tourists, which means you can offer your clients something different and certainly less stressful. Leonardo will be a huge pull factor for tourists to Milan this year.
Two examples of promoting Milan from a fresh perspective
To give you an idea of how to promote Milan as a tourist destination from a fresh perspective, we thought that we would give you just two examples. The first example, organised by the Municipality of Milan, relies exclusively on the year of Leonardo to promote tourism and uses an experiential tourism model to help visitors experience Milan. It is called “Sulle Orme di Leonardo” which means “Following in the footsteps of Leonardo”.
Another experiential tourism offer we include as an example, which was developed by us, and is always relevant – not just in the year of Leonardo – is organised by one of our professional tour guides, Elena.This experiential tour helps art lovers, and lovers in general, experience Milan from a novel perspective, and is called: Milan, red roses, kisses & pictures.
Following in the footsteps of Leonardo
There are many walking tours based around the life of Leonardo in Milan this year, but one of them is organised by the Municipality of Milan itself. The itinerary of the tour was inspired by Leonardo’s impact on Milan over the twenty years he lived there. The walking tour is structured so that you can experience Milan via Leonardo’s artistic and engineering works and productions that he left to the city of Milan. The walking tour begins from the refectory of the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie which houses the world famous fresco from Leonardo: The Last Supper, continues on through several locations associated with the legendary polymath, and finishes at the Museum of Science and Technology, so you can see the other, technical side of Leonardo’s genius. As you can see, this walking tour inspired by the life of Leonardo gives tourists a great, and unique experience of Milan! After following in the footsteps of Leonardo you could visit the Pinacoteca where another masterpiece is on display: Hayez’s Kiss.
Experience Milan with Elena!
Obviously, you don’t have to use experiential tours based on Leonardo to promote Milan from a fresh perspective. We at Artès have different experiential tourism products to promote Milan. One example of these Artès’ tours is Elena’s experiential tour. It is based on photographing lovers in front of Hayden’s Kiss, and is the perfect metaphor for seeing Milan in a different way. It combines and transforms the everyday into the eternal, and is a completely unique and novel way of seeing Milan. Have a look at this interview with Elena about her experiential tour Milan, red roses, kisses & pictures for more information on this fresh way your clients can experience Milan. And as an added bonus, if you go on Elena’s tour you get tickets to the Cenacolo Vinciano and Pinacoteca di Brera for 36euro which is 4euro cheaper than the regular price of 40euro.
3 key skills for Travel Agents promoting a city like Milan as experiential tourism destination
Here are three skills we think absolutely essential for travel agents promoting cities like Milan using experiential tourism to give their clients a different travel experience:
- Ability to promote very popular tourist destinations like Milan from a fresh perspective to help them stand out, and interest more potential clients.
- Offering engaging and interesting experiential tourism products which facilitate the visitor seeing the city from a different angle.
- Indepth, intimate knowledge of the area, and have local contacts with people who are professionals in their respective fields of expertise.
We at Artès have all of these skills and that’s why you should think about choosing us as your local partner to work with. Visit and browse our website to see what we have to offer!