WAITING FOR THE WAVES
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Norther Italian regions have been the worst affected in the country by the virus. Liguria has been the 4° most affected region, proportionally to its population and its availability in hospital facilities. This region is the main seaside destination of Norther Italy, due to its proximity to the big cities like Milan, the hardest hit of all during the emergency.
In this summer season, Liguria is one of the most strategical and at the same time problematic Italian region for the development of new COVID-19 flows and for the country’s recovery.
Beach resort workers have been the first who had to face the re-opening according to safety standards and social distancing in one of the smallest Italian regions, that hosts every summer thousands of tourists, many of whom come this year from the main Red Zones of the pandemic.
They started workin in early May, a month late than usual, in a complete uncertainty about when and how to re-open, unaware of what type of wave they should have expected.
Beach resorts have been build with almost the half of the stations, needing to maintain safety distances. A lot of services for the customers have been created for the first time.
The current restrictions, especially those ones about distance and space, are making tourism workers rethink not only the idea of beach, but their entire idea of Tourism, based, until today, on the inappropriate and extreme use of space, the main issue of this land in the past 60 years.

Waiting for the Waves has been published on C41 Magazine.