An affectionate thought for Gutenberg

Last November, at the TTG in Rimini, I met Palmiro Noschese, Managing Director Italy for Melia International, a Spanish company which has reserved an important role for our country in its development plans. Noschese is at the helm of this growth, which is dynamically proving fruitful.
We walked around the stands, stopped at a presentation, went to the bar for coffee. We just chatted casually, as happens in these cases. “Antonio, I would give everything I have achieved to be able to go back thirty years!”. This became the refrain for the day, until the evening: at the party held by Planetaria Hotels, every time we came across each other, Noschese went on repeating it with a big laugh.
The count of passing years is an indicator that receives little attention, caught up as we are in day-to-day demands. For once, however, let’s go back over what happened in this period, the impact of these years in our lives; what we have done: we got married, we made a career, we retired, we had children, we graduated from university; what was the real meaning of the days that followed each other, turning into years?
Then I think of Job in Tourism, which – in 2017 – will be in its twentieth year of operation, and how it has impacted on my life and the industry. I cannot help looking back at the distance we have covered, the vicissitudes we have witnessed, the profound change the world has experienced in this period, the satisfaction of having transformed an idea into a useful project which is a point of reference for many. It was neither simple nor easy to introduce models already present in other countries into the Italian market, characterised by decision-making processes influenced by ingrained customs. A periodical publication is something simple and complex at the same time. When Job in Tourism in print had become a consolidated model, something happened that, only a few years back, nobody would have prophesied: IT revolutionised the way news had been circulated through the press from Gutenberg on, for over six hundred years. The Twin Towers event, with the consequent deep revision of companies’ decision making processes, accelerated this transformation and, after a period of bewilderment, forced us to revise our operating approach, now mainly in the digital world.
This is history, but Noschese’s joking assertion makes me think of the time gone by, the minor or major events that have characterised this period with Job, and because we cannot go back thirty years as Noschese would like, we can only unfold our memories, the good and the not so good, and start the new year with renewed energy and willingness – new projects that will see the light during the year. But it would be nothing without your attention, and in doing our best to contribute to work in tourism, we will make every effort to deserve your trust.