Orange Flag
The Bandiera Arancione (Orange Flag), awarded by the Italian Touring Club on February 17th 2003, now waves above the beautiful hills around Barberino and is one of the Town Council of Barberino Val d'Elsa's most recent points of pride. It is an 
important recognition of tourist and environmental quality in inland areas. A significant title on a national level that both confirms and acknowledges the unique values and qualities of this small borough in the Province of Florence. A town that is now considered one of the finest places in Italy for its cultural heritage, care of the environment, hospitality, access and use of resources, for it restaurants and typical products. These are the methods used by the Italian Touring Club to evaluate and identify areas capable of proposing alternative and different forms of tourism and of satisfying requirements for development of quality holidays.
A complex process lies behind the admission to the Orange Flag lists. The first step is application on the part of the town. The Tuscan Regional Government actively assists the various town boroughs to apply by contacting them and asking them to enter their applications as aspiring Orange flag towns. The next step is a pre-selection by means of a questionnaire in order to calculate a quality index and thus proceed with the selection. The next stage is the most important, in other words, when an analysis is carried out after a visit on site to the selected towns. These are examined on the basis of their correspondence to the standards indicated by the five large tourist centres: reception, accommodation, facilities and services, tourist attractions, the quality of the environment and an evaluation of quality. The first standard on the list, reception, includes making sure that there are tourist information services available and good road signs, as well as easy access to the town in question and the frequency of public transport. The second covers an examination of the number of hotels, farm holiday centres and restaurants in the area. The third is instead useful for the identification of environmental, historic-cultural and social resources. The fourth standard consists in controlling out what initiatives are being carried out as regards the environment, like waste disposal and the protection and care of the natural landscape. Lastly, the fifth has the task of analysing some important elements connected with what the tourist will find in the town and this ranges from its the general up-keep, the hospitality, cordiality, atmosphere and traditions to the wine and gastronomic choices available in the area.
Once application has gone through and the general standards have been examined, the Town Boroughs aspiring for recognition are visited by experts who personally inspect and verify the truth of the characteristics presented. This mark of quality, which is temporary and valid for 2 years, can
only be granted after completing the above process.
Only 52 Italian townships have been awarded the Orange Flag to date. Some of them, including Barberino Val d'Elsa, which has offered to act as co-ordinator for Tuscany, have founded the Paesi Arancioni (Orange Countries) Association, led by the Town Council of Dolceacqua. The association has promoted a large number of initiatives and projects, one of the most important of which is the Passapaese , a virtual passport issued by the local tourist office, which gives tourists the right to a series of services and privileges. These include discounts on certain products in established shops which, in exchange, are advertised in the various promotional activities carried out by the association. Moreover, tourists presenting a Passapaese passport that has been stamped 10 times, naturally by separate tourist offices, of which four must be in different regions of Italy, are entitled to a voucher of 50 euro which can be used in the established shops.
