Italian
English
For over 25 years we have been the official association for promoting Florence as a destination, aiming to attract major events, conferences, international weddings and quality tourism. In 2024, we have become a Foundation whose Founding Members are the City of Florence and the Metropolitan City of Florence, with the aim of leveraging collaboration between institutions and the network of local entrepreneurs and private operators.
In a scenario where public institutions hold most of the sector’s strategic assets and private players join resources and expertise, the Destination Florence Convention & Visitors Bureau Foundation is a model that represents the territory comprehensively and interacts with international markets.
A great team for a great project
We have come a long way
We were born in 1995 as Firenze Convention Bureau, focusing explicitly on MICE tourism: a nonprofit consortium company with majority shareholder Firenze Fiera Congress & Exhibition Center. In 2009 the Province of Florence, which at the time had full ownership in tourism policy, acquired the absolute majority of the capital. The new leadership concretely made possible that public-private teamwork that has proven to be the real added value in promoting the city as an event destination.
When the Province of Florence resolved its withdrawal from the shareholding structure following a national reform that downsized its functions, our strategy focused on involving more and more operators in the area, who chose to invest in our company by acquiring the Province’s shares. Between 2011 and 2014, the increase in private members was more than 36 %, with 141 partners in total.
In 2015 we won the call for tenders issued by the City of Florence to promote the Florence destination, becoming official partners of the city. We thus laid the foundation for our future, which still includes leisure tourism: we became Firenze Convention and Visitors Bureau. This officiality gave us the opportunity to expand membership and open up to new markets, primarily destination weddings, creating the Tuscany for Weddings division, in partnership with Toscana Promozione Turistica. Then on January 18, 2017, Destination Florence, the division dedicated to quality leisure tourism, was born, and with it Destination Florence Convention and Visitors Bureau.
In 2019 we were confirmed for the second time, for the next 5 years, as the partner selected by the City of Florence to promote the destination to attract quality tourism, congresses and destination weddings. Two main news of this partnership: the first is that, following the agreement signed in December 2018 between the Municipality of Florence, the Metropolitan City, the Chamber of Commerce and the University of Florence, we have been selected as the sole partner to carry out initiatives to enhance congress tourism and to deseasonalize and delocalize flows and expand quality tourism; the second news is that our role is to promote not only Florence, but also the territories in the metropolitan area that lend themselves to hosting events, especially corporate ones. A role also strengthened by the memorandum of understanding signed with the tourism section trade associations: Federalberghi, Confesercenti and Confindustria.
Today, thanks to the support of our Members and the participation as Founding Members of the City of Florence and the Metropolitan City, the Destination Florence Convention & Visitors Bureau Foundation is finally born.