A network of 60 smart devices installed along the five itineraries, equipped with proximity technology, connects with the Italia.it app: users receive push notifications on their smartphones, giving them immediate access to maps and multimedia content. An integral part of the “Antichi Cammini d’Italia” project.
An integrated digital infrastructure accompanies travellers along the five historic and religious walking routes at the heart of “Antichi Cammini d’Italia”. Sixty smart signage devices installed along the Via Francigena, the Way of Saint Francis, the Way of Saint Benedict, the Romea Strata and the Via Romea Germanica communicate in real time with the free Italia.it app, turning the walker’s smartphone into a personalized, contextual and discreet guide.
How it works
Each smart signage device is equipped with proximity technology based on Bluetooth Low Energy beacons: low-energy devices that emit a short-range signal. When users approach a device with the Italia.it app installed on their smartphone, the app automatically recognizes their position and triggers a push notification inviting them to discover the stage they are on and the tourism nearby.
There is no need to scan codes, search online for information or know the points of interest in advance: the experience activates on its own, in the right place, accompanying users discreetly as they walk.
Each device also provides free Wi-Fi, ensuring connectivity even where mobile coverage is limited — a particularly important benefit along the more isolated Apennine sections of the itineraries.
What the Italia.it app offers
Through the app, travellers access an integrated content system: geolocated maps showing their route in real time, technical information on each stage — length, elevation gain, difficulty and refreshment points — and more than 1,000 information sheets dedicated to churches, monuments, natural areas, squares and identity-defining places in the territories crossed by the routes. The app also provides multimedia content, with images, in-depth texts and narratives devoted to the main Points of Interest.
More than 40% of the sites highlighted by the app are outstanding assets still little known within international tourism circuits. The digital system therefore helps bring to light a widespread heritage that travellers would be unlikely to discover on their own.
An experience that integrates the physical and digital dimensions
The smart signage system is designed to integrate the physical experience of the walk with a digital layer, without replacing it. Travelers keep the freedom of their own pace, the silence of listening and direct contact with the landscape; the app intervenes only when useful, offering tools for orientation, interpretation and discovery in real time.
It is a model designed for today’s increasingly diverse tourist audience — in terms of age, origin and motivation — and it enhances the heritage of the routes in an accessible, sustainable and international way.
Download the Italia.it app
The Italia.it app is available free of charge on the App Store and Google Play. Once installed, users simply need to activate Bluetooth on their smartphone during the walk to automatically receive notifications about stages and places of interest along the five itineraries of “Antichi Cammini d’Italia”.
Project funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU “Antichi Cammini di Italia”, PNRR – Mission M1C3, Investment 4.3, Measure 274 – the Italian Ministry of Tourism is the subject operator, ENIT S.p.A. is the subject agent.
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