Adapting and Promoting Tourism for Children in Venice and the Lagoon Islands: A Comparative Analysis of Food-Related Discourse Strategies in English and in Italian

According to the latest available version of the Annual Tourism Survey drafted by the City of Venice, in 2023, 12,628,079 tourists visited Venice and the Lagoon Islands (Bettiol & Marini, 2025). This survey does not provide data on the age groups of these visitors, but they are available in the previous version of the same Survey (Bianchetto & Marini, 2022), which reports that 29% of tourists were in the 46-71 age group. Therefore, we can presume that, excluding the older age groups, quite a large proportion of visitors is likely composed of young tourists and families with children. This study focuses on this specific category of visitors by investigating the websites of local institutions and tour operators that explicitly address their promotional message to children and their families. To do so, the research conducts a comparative Discourse Analysis on six websites (i.e., Kids in Venice, Venezia Unica, Venice Kids Tours, Vivo Venetia, Veneto for Kids and ViaggiaPiccoli) that present the tourist offer of Venice and the Lagoon Islands in English and / or in Italian to national and international prospective young visitors. The aim of the study is to investigate how local tourist institutions and private organisations / tour operators promote and transmit the local traditional culture, with specific attention paid to enogastronomic aspects, to both domestic and foreign younger generations of visitors as a means towards preserving the local culture that is constantly endangered by depopulation and globalisation (Zanini, 2017).