LAW 190 OF 13 DECEMBER 2023 ON TOURIST GUIDES without having the authority, and thus have been repealed (for example, environmental guides). Indeed, paragraph 3 letter a) states that the guided tour aims to highlight the characteristics, aspects, and values, historical, artistic, archaeological, monumental, religious, demo-ethno-anthropological, and landscape-related, of the national heritage. This is achieved through experiential multisensory paths that enable a deeper understanding of traditions, heritage, and other elements of local identity: a comprehensive experience. It further adds in letter b) that the guide also aims to enhance, protect, and transmit the correct and updated knowledge of the heritage, recognizing its fragility that needs to be preserved. This preservation is achieved through the awareness of visitors, who need to be educated to respect and conservation of the heritage. Letter b) attributes to the guide, in addition to an informative role an educational one, aiming to teach to respect the heritage and recognize its fragility, in order to contribute to its conservation so that posterity can also enjoy it. The new nationalized guide is, therefore, considered as such when possessing a comprehensive expertise and, consistently, when also assuming an additional educational-protective role. This includes ensuring accessibility to sites for everyone, particularly for individuals with disabilities. In this perspective of professionalizing the service36, it is essential to have the stipulation of an insurance contract. Article 3, paragraph 4, indeed mandates the compulsory stipulation of an insurance coverage to ensure professional liability protection37 for the customer using the service. The insurance policy was already specified in some regional laws, but there was no uniformity across the entire national territory. Once the professional is defined, Article 3 establishes the rule that the practice of the profession is always subject to passing the national qualification examination, except in some limited cases. The first exemption case concerns citizens of the European Union, or of a state belonging to the European Economic Area or Switzerland, who are qualified in their own country. They can temporarily and occasionally perform the guiding activity under a regime of free provision, as provided 36 As further evidence of the identification of a new professional figure, Article 8 of Law 190/23 establishes that ISTAT (Italian National Institute of Statistics) defines a specific classification of activities related to the profession of tourist guide and assigns a specific ATECO code. ATECO is the classification of economic activities adopted by ISTAT for statistical purposes, namely for the production and dissemination of official statistical data. 37 Regarding professional liability see among others: M. Gazzarra, Professional indemnity insurance (L’assicurazione di responsabilità civile professionale), Napoli, 2016.
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