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| The
history of Jesolo: The epic of tourism |
An unprecedented miracle happened in little
more than ten years right after the war, that is the development
and the achievement of Jesolo as an internationally renowned
beach. The official award as Sojourn and Tourist Resort comes
in 1952. Ten years later Lido di Jesolo already numbers 323
among hotels, B&B and inns, and in 1963 the number grows by
31 units. An outstanding growth, indeed. "It is said
that the luck of Jesolo - writes in 1958 the journalist Dino
Villani -is due to Venice, but in my opinion this is true
only in part. Those who did not feel like spending incredible
amounts of money staying in the Lido might have contributed
to increasing the number of tourists in Jesolo, but in no
way could they have proved vital. The new visitors, a great
many o them, actually, thanks to the summer holidays diffusion
and the sea-holiday fad, are more easily attracted to a nice,
but not extremely expensive resort, where you can just feel
free." A beach that is for everybody, in the end. Such
a characteristic has been maintained by the one thatØs the
leading summer holiday resort of the Veneto, throughout all
the years of its history. Towards the end of the fifties Jesolo
was one of the very few holiday resorts to admit the importance
and the need to create a mark of itself, a distinctive sign
able to stir interest through publicity. It is a nice mark
(the lifebelt with the head of a duck), which immediately
makes people think of the familiar feature of the beach: "A
beach - quoting what the brochures of the time said - that
is ideal for all families, where you can let your children
have fun in the water without worrying." With reference
to such matter, Villani observes: "Jesolo makes all it
can to use the mark in the best of ways, never forgetting
to make it perfectly visible, so much that it is not easy
to say yet, whether it was the lifebelt that copied the mark
of Jesolo, or else it was Jesolo that found, among the many
lifebelts, the ideal one and used it. A perfect example of
ante litteram marketing. The seaside vocation, already known
after the 1920s, has right in the beginning of the 60s (or
thinks so could soon happen) a series of infrastructures,
which could as well be the envy of today's beaches. In 1958
the air-club of San Don› provides the Cà Brescia area
with a tourist airport, which during the summer period, is
open to international flights, allowing for the landing of
aeroplanes whose weight does not exceed two tons. The airport
is very functional: it organises aeronautical exhibitions,
flights above the area and a pilotsØ school. As if that were
not enough, since 1949 thereØs been in Jesolo an equestrian
tradition. In that year in fact, Count Cesare Persico decides
to announce the ²First national horse show" of Lido di
Jesolo. The show goes on with great success for the tourit
sector, so much that in 1963 the then president of the Azienda
Autonoma di Soggiorno e Turismo, architect Romualdo Seno,
requests that Jesolo is provided with a race-course. Not only
that: "Another important step we should work on - says
Seno at the beginning of 1964 - is that of having a golf-court
of at least 18 holes. To complete our aim as for the infrastructures
and in order to prolong the summer season, I find such facility
necessary." Among the other offers proposed by jesolo
in 1963 are: two figure-skating rinks; two go-kart tracks:
the Pista del Pippeto and, as from 1961, the Pista Azzurra;
eight cinematographic rooms; four mini-golf facilities; one
clay-pigeon shooting court; twelve dance-halls. And, how about
the events? In March 1963, in the central hall of the Capannine,
a boxing meeting without prizes is held, with athletes such
as Brandi, Dos Santos, Baseotto and Cominardi, highlighted
by the match Burruni-Luis Rodriguez Aguado. Organised by the
Venetian Motorboat Club is, in June, a sports exhibition for
off and on board, on a Venice-Lido di Jesolo route. A few
days later at the Las Vegas hotel the thirteenth edition of
the bridge tournament is held, organised by the Bridge Club
of Padua. The show closes with a Gala in honour of the competitors.
Always in June Jesolo sees the second edition of the Cantagiro.
The ninth and last Rally of Journalists is another scheduled
exhibition. Organised by Lawyer Raffaello Guzman, with many
people attending it; among those people are thirty foreign
journalists in pairs. This is the last edition for, right
in 1963, it is decided that such exhibition would, in the
future, be replaced by a round table. In July, in the Drago
cinema arena, the international boxing match among the amateurish
teams Italy B - London is held. During the same month, at
the clay-pigeon shooting court in via Levantina there are
some competitions of such discipline. At the end of August
the Bathing Tournament of Tennis is held, for second and third
category players and also non-classified ones, open to foreign
tennis players, too. In the same month the OIDP of Milan organises
the "Festival of Children", with many TV actors
and children as participants. Always in August the Skating
Club Jesolo, under the direction of Mariuccia Rivella Passaggio,
organises a figure-roller skating contest. Tennis once again
in September with the show organised by the international
committee tennis veterans, for the Dubler Cup Award. During
the summer there are a lot of mini-golf shows, both local
and regional, and go-kart contests, also international, all
held at the Pista Azzurra. Among the traditional shows, finally,
are the Festival of Fire, at ferragosto (middle August), and
the Fruit Festival, in September. At this point it is interesting
to notice how little, during all these years, the "tourist
communication" of Jesolo has changed. In the two-year
period 1962-63 the "propaganda" is carried out mostly
through the diffusion of advertising brochures; displays'
preparation, attendance to fairs and exhibitions, publicity
ads, trips abroad, road ads. The Azienda Autonoma di Soggiorno
e Turismo prints, during the above mentioned years, 300.000
coloured brochures, 200.000 small maps of Lido di Jesolo,
150.000 price lists, 20.000 bills, 10.000 booklets. Most of
this material is for the ENIT delegations abroad, the rest
is for 4.500 travel offices all over Italy and for the local
information centre. The displays are a novelty of these years:
set up at the Rinascente in Milan, as well as in the city
centres of Zurig, Munich, Dusseldorf and Paris, they reproduce
the image of the localityØs road sign, the lifebelt on a blue
background. And the fairs' visitors found a few gadgets that
today would not be as popular, very nice: bags containing
the sand of Jesolo. A last note regards the promotional trips
abroad: not less than 111 during the two-year period. Between
the end of the 50's and the beginning of the 60's Jesolo truly
has all it needs to become the capital of the international
tourism. Its beach, without that building growth by which
it would be characterised during the following few years,
looks even longer than it actually is. The first big hotels
are built in the pine-wood area, on the outskirts of an area
that at the time was still considered as wild. The beautiful
60's are about to explode and the entrepreneurs are ready
for the adventure. The fervour is at the top as well as the
spirit of collaboration. There are many resorts that start
their tourist adventure with Jesolo, but they lack Jesolo's
opportunities, like for example its nearness to Venice. And
its importance may be gathered by the fact that, for example,
in 1958 Jesolo is the only participant, with Bergamo and Riccione,
to the Fair of Milan. Then, suddenly, it is as if the verve
disappears, everything is like on hold. What would have Jesolo
become had its potentialities and what once was the burning
fire of ambition not diminished? What if it had invested with
greater power on its image, like Rimini? In Ø58 Dino Villani
foresees: "Should we hope that the growth goes on, or
else that it definitely stops and the splendid resort properly
settles within the road connections, creates more public spots,
improves the local facilities and the links with the sibling
resorts especially with Venice, from which it is little more
than fifteen minutes away, separated by the sea?" Perhaps
the explanation lies exactly in this failure to get things
just right.
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