Since 1894, Touring Club Italiano is a private non-profit organization that asks to its members to take care of Italy as a common good to make it more known, attractive, competitive and welcoming.
It protects and enhances the landscape, our cultural heritage – both material and immaterial – and the excellence in manufacturing that characterize Italian's districts, producing knowledge, promoting widespread volunteering and an ethical and responsible travel practice, according to the principles of sustainability and collaboration.
Open for You project is a concrete evidence of how TCI pursues this mission.
Thanks to Open for You project, Touring Club Italiano promotes voluntary activities to make accessible wonderful places otherwise not open.
Born in Milan in 2005, the project promotes the systematic and continuous opening of cultural places usually closed to the public, thanks to the collaboration of volunteers who, after an intense training course, welcome and give information for visitor orientation, promote knowledge of the common goods, generating a sense of belonging to cultural heritage.
The strength of the Touring Club is its voluntary structure: over 1.600 volunteers are both operators and users, in a continuous exchange with the territory. So far, Touring Club has opened more than 80 places in 35 cities across 14 regions throughout Italy to over 21,000,000 visitors.
Thanks to this project, cultural places, a legacy to be passed onto future generations, are given back to citizens and tourists. From the Renaissance frescoes of the church of San Maurizio in Milan to those of the Longobard era of the church of Santa Maria de' Lama in Salerno, from the Royal Gardens of Turin to the rooms of Palazzo Arese Borromeo in Cesano Maderno, Open for You places are an inexhaustible source of artistic and cultural heritage.
In 2015, President of Italy Sergio Mattarella decided to open the Quirinale Palace to citizens and tourists: since then, TCI volunteers have welcomed visitors together with students from the Universities of Rome.
Some important acknowledgments: Patronage of the MIBAC and Certificate of Civic Merit of the City of Milan (2010); High Patronage of the President of Italy Giorgio Napolitano (2012); Certificate of Civic Merit of the City of Brescia (2016).
TCI volunteer in S. Antonio Abate - Milan
In 2023 Open for You won the European Heritage Award.
“The initiative’s remarkable impact and engagement are evident in the impressive numbers it has achieved. As a sustainable project that has been ongoing for two decades, Open for You has fostered a strong community with a high level of interaction among its diverse volunteers, contributing to social cohesion and the creation of a robust network”, the Awards’ Jury commented.
“At its core, the Open for You initiative revolves around heritage accessibility, going beyond the confines of museums and encompassing a wide range of sites, year-round. This makes it a unique model. Knowledge transfer is facilitated by bridging the gap between professionals and volunteers through comprehensive training. In terms of policy, the initiative advocates for a tourism approach that prioritises heritage protection and raises awareness among visitors. Its success in overcoming challenges and engaging private entities to open up their cultural heritage sites sets a powerful precedent, demonstrating the potential for broader adoption of similar strategies in other countries”, the Jury added.
According to art.9 of the Italian Constitution, Touring Club Italiano’s mission is to take care of Italy as a common good fostering the enhancement, promotion and knowledge of cultural heritage. Therefore TCI:
* encourages the active participation of citizens: identifies, trains and coordinates the volunteers who take care of welcome and assistance to visitors * enhances the sites with diversified cultural initiatives and with ongoing awareness-raising and communication activities, to promote the widest accessibility and fruition by large number of people.
Even if not directly involved in heritage conservation and restoration practices, keeping these places open and guaranteeing their fruition contributes not only to their enhancement but also to their protection.
With Open For You project, Touring Club Italiano raises active citizenship, spreading awareness that the cultural, historical and artistic heritage is a common good and therefore everyone should take care of it.
Aims and objectives of the project are:
* care and promotion of cultural heritage * social cohesion and inclusion * facilitate the culture fruition and make the places know by diversified audiences * stimulate citizens' engagement and civic responsibility * promote and enhance the Italian cultural and artistic heritage
The invitation is to be, all of us citizens, active custodians of the treasures entrusted to us by our ancestors, to realize the dream of a country that takes care of itself, strengthening community connection, freeing the many hidden energies, creating a sense of belonging and mutual trust.
Investing in culture and in voluntary activities as key points for taking care of Italy as a common good and, therefore, for relaunching tourism as well, are part of the recipe for reviving the Country. Culture has always been the first ingredient for most important innovations capable of designing a better future.
TCI volunteers in Milan - Park of the Amphitheater and Antiquarium Alda Levi
Touring Club Italiano is responsible for the volunteers’ activity, ensures appropriate volunteers’ preparation to welcome visitors in the sites and organizes specific training moments, to offer the visitor the best visit experience.
One of the strengths of the project is the ability to involve volunteers of different ages and background (students, teachers, employees, housewives, retirees, etc).
The sites are very different for property owners, types (churches, museums, gardens, archaeological sites, historical buildings, etc.) and opening hours. In agreement with the property owners, TCI trains and coordinates volunteers to guarantee continuous access to a large number of visitors; TCI also offers wide and diversified cultural programs to generate value for the place, the local community and tourists.
To coordinate an ever-increasing number of volunteers in an ever-increasing number of places throughout the country, it has been necessary to design and implement an IT management system, with continuous updates. The IT system allows to organize the monthly shifts of volunteers, enter their availability on weekdays and absences, ensure punctual and continuous programming and agile management of exceptional openings or emergencies; it also allows real-time monitoring of the shift situation in more than 80 sites throughout the country.
The introduction of the principle of subsidiarity into the Italian Constitution legitimized the autonomous initiatives of citizens who act for the care of the tangible and intangible common goods. Today there are tens of thousands of people in cities and towns who are taking care of schools, public gardens, cultural heritage... Public goods become common goods when a community decides to take care of them.
TCI believes that volunteering is a moral duty and a civil right: those who belong to a community must do something for it, in relation to their possibilities and skills.
As European citizens, our priority is taking care, every day, of wonderful places that belong to all of us and that represent our cultural heritage, enhancing art and culture to pass them on to our children.