Italy is seeing a boom not only in demand for truffles, the delicious fungus of which Italy is one of the main producers, but also for a new sub-category of tourism—truffle-hunting tours, truffle fairs, truffle classes and festivals.
While the overall value of the truffle trade is in the billions (and is expected to pass €5 billion in a few years, the tourist category is new and only accounts (for now, for a small fraction. Still, so far this year, an estimated 120,000 visitors have been drawn to truffle events, and have spent $63 million on them.
In Italy, the truffle industry is focused in the north, mainly in Piedmont, Molise, Tuscany, Marche, Umbria and Emilia-Romagna, and deals mostly in white truffles. In France, which also has a large trade in truffles, black truffles are also significant.
And competition among producers is fierce. One reason Italy is making such a fuss of its truffles is to establish an aura of quality about them that can keep demand, and prices, high in the face of competition from Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania, as well as France.
