As a guide dedicated to the beach club sector, we feel obligated to address – as we always have – the emergency that has now exploded, and we’re not even at August yet… That of “over-the-top” behaviors, to put it mildly, by some beach club managers, behaviors that damage the entire category. Now, having exhausted the favorable wave of communication triggered by the Guide’s release through July, the opposite wave has started. They’re talking about it in London too, where the Guardian published a report on the situation of beaches (here Gambero Rosso writes about it), and Famiglia Cristiana is about to publish a report that promises rather badly, starting with the case of a facility that charges a euro to anyone who simply wants to fill their water bottle. And in the coming weeks it will get worse…

These days someone has called free beach visitors “paupers,” and someone has exceeded the limits of their concession, blocking passage to the sea through the facility, well knowing they legally cannot do so. Then there’s the other thorny issue, the ban on consuming food brought from outside, which has no legal basis, as recalled by the National Consumers Union. And on social media, protests have exploded, especially on the Sorrento coast, against these and other abuses.

As a site and as a guide, we believe that beach clubs represent an excellence of the Italian beach sector, and it is clear that these ugly incidents are not in line with the positioning and quality level reached by most beach facilities. Which must first respect customers, even those who are not their customers but could always become so, if only for a coffee or ice cream to buy or enjoy sitting on the towel of the free beach adjacent to the facility. Whoever assumes exclusivity, prohibition, and abuse as a management criterion, is simply not a true entrepreneur. They’re not because they’re not investing in the future, they’re only trying to maximize profit destined to disappear under the threat of increasingly aggressive media campaigns. And it’s natural that social media constitutes the means to strike and sink a sector that already has to contend with a terrible image. Industry associations are complicit in all this, because they have not overseen and have very often encouraged such behaviors.

We hope – and we ourselves will contribute to promoting it – that we can reach a moment of reflection and a “code of conduct” adopted by beach managers with strict oversight of those who do not respect it. Otherwise, the Italian model based on the existence of a quality service spread along the entire Italian coast risks failing under the blows of controversies and complaints. Which would please those who are ideologically opposed to beach facilities and dream of an Italian coast similar to the Basque or Portuguese one, where there’s nothing but stormy sea. But it would be a disaster for tourism, for families, for bather safety, and for the expectations of those who love experiencing the sea with all the best services.