We are hosts, guides, cooks, winemakers, innkeepers and travellers. We come from different countries and different trades, but we recognise each other quickly. We prefer a long lunch to a long itinerary, and we would rather know one village well than see ten from a coach window.
Relational tourism means the traveller arrives as a guest and leaves as a friend. Contact tourism means the encounter is the point, not a side effect: you meet the miller, you taste the oil while it is still green, you hear why the harvest was late this year.
Supporting local people is not charity. It is the only way the places we love will still be worth visiting in twenty years. When money stays with the families who farm, cook and host, villages stay alive and traditions stay honest.
This association exists to connect the people who already work this way, to give them a common voice, and to help travellers find them. It began in Italy. It does not intend to stay there.