The Italian Ministry of Tourism has been ridiculed by critics and social media users after it used images of people drinking Slovenian wine in Slovenia to lure tourists to Italy in its official video. In this respect reported Reuters.
The video “Open to Wonder” was part of a €9 million ($9.91 million) campaign. The video was produced by Armando Testa’s communication group.
In the video, the goddess Venus, the symbol of Italian art depicted in Sandro Botticelli’s Renaissance masterpiece The Birth of Venus, is seen eating pizza in a miniskirt in front of Florence Cathedral and Roman Colosseum in Italy. In the video’s most controversial footage, a group of teenagers are actually smiling and drinking wine on a sunny patio in a typical Italian scene. But attentive viewers noticed that the patio in question was actually located in the Kotar region of Slovenia, close to the Italian border, and that the bottle on the table had a label with COTAR wine on it.
Armando Testa’s contact group was not available for comment at the time of writing.
The video was widely ridiculed by critics and on social media, even before some of it was known to have been filmed abroad.
Italian Tourism Minister Daniela Santanche called critics of the video “snobby” and said the portrayal of Venus as an influencer was intended to attract young people.