The tourism experience is provided through personal interaction. The availability of staff with specific skills and competencies for each product and tourism experience is vital. Tourism managers and employees must be able to adapt to technological requirements, have language skills, and the flexibility to respond to quickly changing demands from clients. To maximise the potential of tourism over the long term, it is critical for Italy to develop and improve its education and training offer in the field of tourism in a way that will explicitly meet the needs of the Italian tourism industry stakeholders. At present there is both a quality and a quantity gap in the education and training available in Italy. Despite the fact that the number of tourism university courses has rapidly increased in recent years, the number of students has declined. The demand for higher education skills from the sector is also very weak, with the orientation of the courses not sufficiently market-oriented, and tourism businesses not playing an active role in the definition of content or course development. There is a need to enhance the transfer of knowledge from the education sector to the industry and develop an integrated approach closely associating the regions, the private sector and the education and training organisations.