He’s the owner of Veditalia, a provider of English-language guided tours that last year had revenue of 1.2 million euros. He pulled in about 150,000 euros in January, but says “the rest of year will be zero.” All his reservations through September have been cancelled, and he predicts it will take years to get back to pre-corona levels. He has applied for government assistance to cover the salaries of his six employees, but the 1,200 euros they’ll receive each month is far less than they normally earn, and the program is currently set to expire in 90 days.
“How can I pay them after that?” Salvagnin asks. “The world will be poorer and people will be afraid to travel.”
Another business fueled by the tourist economy, fashion, is stepping up to contribute to the cause. Armani Group has started making disposable gowns for health workers at Italian factories where it typically sews $2,500 wool-and-cashmere suits. Prada is producing protective masks. Luxury parka maker Moncler SpA donated 10 million euros to the new field hospital at Portello.
With Via Monte Napoleone, the fashion district artery lined with sumptuous boutiques that are shuttered for the duration, Moncler is using the forced pause to ensure it can emerge stronger from the lockdown. The crisis highlights the importance of the internet for sales, CEO Remo Ruffini says, and as Moncler turns its attention to its winter collection, he’s instructing his staff to keep things simple so they can quickly get up to speed once things reopen.
“The message I’m giving my team is go back to basics,” he says. “Forget the frills.”
Milan lacks some of the allure of other Italian cities—Rome’s ancient ruins, the renaissance splendor of Florence, the canals of Venice—but what it’s missing in charm, it makes up for in charisma. At its core, Milan is to the 20th and early 21st centuries what each of those others was to an earlier era. It embraces business, commerce, and a vision of the future in a way that nowhere else in the country can match, and that, says Donatella Depperu, a professor of business strategy at Milan's Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, is what will prove to be its salvation—and Italy’s.
“This pandemic won’t change Milan’s role as the moral and economic capital of the country,” she says. “And as such, the antibodies present in Milan will make it, and all of Italy, stronger as we move into the recovery.”