Touring Experience Certified: quality you can verify before setting out
The certification process for individual Italian tourism experiences.
Why certify a tourist experience?
When choosing a culinary, cultural or outdoor experience, people often base their decision on a review, a photo or a description that frequently promises more than it ultimately delivers.
Touring Experience was created to change this approach. It is a certification process developed by CARSA – The Thinking Company in collaboration with the Touring Club Italiano, which acts as its guarantor. It evaluates Italian tourist experiences based on what they actually offer, not just on how they are described.
What does certification mean for travellers?
This isn’t just another label on a website. It means finding concrete criteria behind the certification: how the experience is designed and carried out, its relationship with the local area and the people who live there, its sustainability, and the value it generates for those who experience it and for the place that hosts it.
The difference is simple: you don’t have to rely solely on what the provider of the experience says about itself. You can book knowing that the quality has been verified before you even set out.
How we recognize the value of an experience
To become certified, an experience must first describe itself and then put itself to the test. First, the operator analyzes their experience according to the Touring Experience criteria; then, we experience it firsthand, anonymously, just as any traveler would. It is through comparing what is claimed with what actually happens that the experience can earn the “Touring Experience Certified” designation.
- 01
Self-assessment
The provider evaluates their experience across 7 assessment areas, following the Touring Experience criteria. This is the first step in the process: a guided review of how the experience is designed and delivered, how it is communicated, how accessible and reliable it is, and the value it creates for the local area and community.
This initial step highlights strengths and areas for improvement, based on shared criteria applied consistently to all experiences. Those that meet the required threshold proceed to the next stage: the on-site assessment.
- 02
Undercover Audit
An auditor experiences the tour undercover, just as any traveler would: they book it, participate alongside others, and observe what happens along the way, without anyone knowing who they are.
The audit examines the same seven areas as the previous self-assessment and compares what the operator has declared with what is actually experienced during the tour. It is this comparison that gives the audit its value: quality is observed in the field, firsthand.
If this stage is also completed successfully, the experience receives the “Touring Experience Certified” mark for 2 years.
Frequently asked questions
Traveller
Traveller FAQLearn what a certified experience means and how to recognise it in the catalogue.
Tour operator
Operator FAQHow to join the certification path and publish your experience.
Organisation
Organisation FAQTools to map and promote the territorial offer with shared standards.