About the Hosts

Routes Europe 2026 will be hosted in Rimini by the The Emilia-Romagna Region, The Municipality of Rimini and the Rimini and San Marino International Airport.

Emilia-Romagna Region - The Regional Ministry for Tourism, Commerce and Sport

Emilia-Romagna is an administrative region in northern Italy, comprising the historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The region's name is a legacy of Ancient Rome. Emilia derives from Via Aemilia, the Roman road that connected Piacenza to Rimini, completed in 187 B.C. and named after the consul Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. Romagna is descended from Romània, the name applied to Ravenna by the Lombards when the Western Empire had ceased to exist (540-751).

It is one of the richest and most developed regions in Europe, with a per capita gross domestic product above the Italian and European averages. This has been achieved thanks to the development of a very balanced economy that includes Italy's largest agricultural sector, a long tradition in automobile, motor and mechanical manufacturing, and a strong banking and insurance industry. It is Italy's leading region in terms of exports per capita, always looking to the future, research, innovation such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, sustainable growth, blue and green economy and aerospace. Emilia-Romagna is acknowledged as an international Data Valley boasting top world supercomputers, cutting- edge data centres and a large ‘big data community’ and a cultural centre, being the home of the University of Bologna, the oldest in the world, 7 Universities, a lively cultural and creative industry.

The region welcomes about 14.5 million visitors annually, generating 62 million overnight stays. It is one of the leading tourist destinations in Europe (for both leisure and business travel) thanks to its high level of accessibility, authentic Italian offerings, and a highly specialized and developed hospitality industry. The two main gateways to the region are the international airports of Bologna and Rimini, and thanks to its geographic location and efficient transportation infrastructure (4 airports, ports, 1 cruise hub, highways, railways) it is a strategic hub with Europe and the Mediterranean. Its unique attractions-historical, cultural, artistic, social, industrial and economic-provide visitors with an authentic, well-rounded experience of the Italian way of life.

The region's brand “Via Emilia - Experience the Italian lifestyle” encompasses the incredible regional specialties of the Food Valley (from Parmigiano Reggiano to Traditional Balsamic Vinegar, Prosciutto di Parma, etc.), some of the biggest names in motorsports (Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, Dallara, Ducati just to name a few), UNESCO World Heritage sites, and active vacations in the Sport & Wellness Valley (including hiking, cycling and golf). From the ski slopes of the Apennines to the theme parks and beaches of the Adriatic Riviera, the region boasts a wealth of art cities, historic towns, castles and spa towns, as well as forests, rolling countryside and fantastic shopping.

Emilia-Romagna can host large groups and major events, thanks to more than 1.1 million beds in 4,300 hotels. Guests are welcomed with passion and will enjoy excellent standards of customer service.  That one of Emilia-Romagna is a highly specialized product with broad appeal to the meetings industry and the business travel sector (9 exhibition centres - the main ones are Bologna, Rimini and Parma – and over 30 International trade shows), offering a wide range of experiences, from leisure and culture to active and experiential activities.

Rimini Municipality

Rimini is an Italian municipality of 150,000 inhabitants, capital of the province of the same name in Emilia-Romagna. The city occupies a historically strategic position, being located on the coast and south of the Po Valley. It is a renowned tourist resort and has a long tradition of tourism: the first bathing establishment on the Romagna Riviera was opened in 1873. Beach tourism reached its peak around the 1960s with the Italian economic boom, and since then the city has been constantly renewing itself. The construction of the Rimini Fair and the Rimini Palacongressi completed the offer for business tourism. As of today, the city has more than 1,000 accommodations offering unique hospitality in the region. In recent years, the Municipality of Rimini has invested in sharing mobility and sustainability by implementing the PSBO plan for water purification, a project included as Best Practices in the Sustainable Development Report defined by the United Nations General Assembly among the Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda (Goal 14 “Life below water”).

International Airport of Rimini and San Marino

AIRiminum 2014 S.p.A. is the Airport Management Company of Rimini and San Marino International airport, “Federico Fellini”, on the basis of a 30-year concession, expiring in 2050.

It is a wholly private capital Company that, after the slowdown due to the recent international crises (Covid and Ukraine war), has launched from 2024 a very ambitious growth plan favoured by the tourist and industrial attractiveness of a territory such as the Emilia-Romagna region and the Republic of San Marino.

Specifically, Romagna is already able to develop, within a radius of only 30 km from the airport, more than 3.2 million leisure and business passengers per year thanks to one of Italy's main tourist platforms:

• 120 km of coastline
• 3,000 hotels
• About 14.5 million tourist presences per year
• Italy's second largest trade fair-congress platform
• Important industrial districts in the area (Cesena, Ravenna, Forlì and Pesaro itself, which, although in the Marche region, is only 20 km from the airport).

The challenge to overcome in the coming years is to develop a network of routes capable of recovering most of the traffic originating from the first circle of the airport's catchment area, which is currently mainly served by other airports (about 60% by airports outside the region).

The Industrial Plan set out to achieve this goal will be based on the following drivers:

• Core market strategy, developed and implemented together with ASM - Global Route Development 
• Aggressive incentive policy in favor of airlines to make the start-up of new routes sustainable
• Hosting Routes Europe 2026, which will be a unique international showcase for the destination
• Radical renovation of the Terminal with a focus on increasing the quality level of passenger services and the acquisition of new areas for the development of an innovative architectural project of the airport, which will make it one of the iconic attractions of Rimini destination by 2030.