A historic milestone in the fight against illegality in the organized tourism sector. The Ministry of Tourism presented the version of the new BDAV platform - Database for Travel Agencies and Tour Operators. This is a fundamental achievement for Fiavet-Confcommercio, materializing a strategic measure that the federation defended and strongly supported in all institutional spheres.
The new database was created to ensure market transparency, fair competition, coordination of information exchange between state authorities and safety for the traveler. The core of the system reflects the Federation's vision: to assign a unique national identification code to travel agencies and tour operators that fully comply with legal requirements.
The display and inclusion of this code will be mandatory in all communications, advertising, promotional activities and social media presences, thus offering tourists an immediate digital tool to verify the authenticity and legitimacy of the chosen operator, thus eliminating the risk of fraud.
38,000 illegal operators against 7,100 regular agencies: The need for centralised public intervention is evident in the sector's macroeconomic data. Estimates indicate that there are approximately 38,000 illegal or unauthorized companies in Italy (according to the Fiavet-Confcommercio Legality Report) that manage package travel flows, compared to only 7,100 properly licensed travel agencies. This drastic imbalance diverts significant revenues from the formal economy through large-scale tax evasion and unfair competition — stemming from non-payment of taxes, mandatory insurance premiums, and operating costs of the activity.
If the economic damage to regular businesses is immense, the risks faced by consumers are even greater. Relying on unauthorized operators means traveling without a guarantee of insurance coverage or local support in case of an emergency, as well as facing a high risk that services and accommodation will not live up to what was promised. The seriousness of this vulnerability became evident during the pandemic, when thousands of people were stranded abroad precisely because they did not have the legal and logistical guarantees offered exclusively by travel packages sold by licensed agencies. To date, regulatory fragmentation, the absence of effective penalties in certain regions, and the lack of resources or specialized training for municipal police forces responsible for enforcement have allowed this problem to become increasingly widespread...."
