Wedding-Based Tourism Development: Insights from an Italian Context

Over the past two decades, wedding tourism has been booming. Despite this, very little research has investigated this phenomenon. This chapter discusses the findings of 15 in-depth interviews with Italian wedding planners, which were carried out to analyse their views on what a destination wedding is, and how frequently they are able to influence the final choice of a site. Further, it discusses four case studies of the most important Italian wedding destinations in order to analyse their offer and related marketing strategy. Findings revealed that wedding destinations can be considered as a complex cluster of interrelated stakeholders; hence, a high degree of coordination and cooperation is needed for destination competitiveness. Further, results suggest that wedding destinations are currently opting for a product/service-oriented strategy with very little attention to a more appropriate experiential and emotional approach.