It was already in the air after September 11, but 2004 has really marked a bad year for the Italian travel industry.

From this January the Italian accommodation industry has seen a decreased of 30% in number of guests and income.

The usual waves of English, American and German tourists that used to bring some of their money to spend in Italy while visiting Rome, Florence and Venice have opted for other cheaper destination.

The Italian have reduced their usual 4 weeks of summer holiday to 2 weeks because their euros were not enough to cope with the prices. The famous tourist Chianti area has been the most affected and had to half their prices to see some tourists.

But the recent news is giving new hopes to the whole country. From September 2004 the 80 million of Chinese middle class will be able to visit Europe since their government has signed a bilateral agreement with the EU that frees and speeds up the concession of tourist visas.

China had started years ago to give passports and visas to their citizen to go abroad, but was the EU and the States that were fussy about giving tourist visas to the Chinese. Under the pressing of a unified international lobby of the travel industry, the EU governments have finally understood that China is not only a dangerous competitor, but also a great market of consumers - and travelers. The Chinese middle class are 80 million and have a purchasing power similar to those of the tourists of the western countries.

World Tourism Organization (WTO) recent studies showed that Chinese outbound tourists now at 20 million annually, could skyrocket to 130 million in the next 13 years.

In 2003, 700 million of Chinese have been in holiday inside China. And 20.2 million of Chinese have instead gone abroad - 30% of whom for business, 70% of whom for holidays. Destinations included Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Malaysia.

Moreover the modern Chinese likes star hotels and trendy restaurants. After years of communism now they are like kids in a toy shop. The middle class Chinese in Europe is the perfect consumer crazy that likes to buy everything - from expensive design clothes to the silly souvenirs to show their friends in China.

Polls say that Italy, France and Germany are their favourite destination for the Chinese in Europe. Since the Chinese love history, fashion and art, Italy has great chances to get grand part of those tourists. The travel package offered by the 250 different chains of travel agencies in China is of 15 days and cover the classic historical European capitals - and the Italian art cities are firsts in the list. Some Italians have already started to translated Restaurant menus, hotel prices and ads in Chinese…

Others are dedicating their spare time in learning few simple words in Chinese like ni-hao (good-day how are you), sciescie (thanks) and zaicien (bye bye) to welcome the make their new guests at home.

cording to official sources, in Italy 18,600 couples have asked (legally) to adopt a foreign baby between 2001 and 2003. But only 7,000 of these adoptions have succeeded.

Wherever and whenever there is a shortage of a product the market naturally find other ways to supply the demand. This sounds natural when talking of tomatoes, but it sounds horrible when the human babies are the products.