The battle over beach concessions is heating up along the Rimini coastline. While Rimini has closed its first tender and is preparing to open the bids, Riccione is finalizing its own procedures and announcing the publication of its first calls for tenders. Two parallel paths that, in this initial phase, both concern beach areas linked to establishments whose facilities sit on private land further inland.
In Rimini, the deadline for the tender to award 27 public beach concessions along the northern coast expired today, Thursday 10 September, at 1pm. 38 applications arrived at the municipal offices — eleven more than the number of available plots. These are shade-only areas intended to complement bathing establishments built on private land.
The concessions will run for five years and will be awarded on the basis of the most economically advantageous offer. Palazzo Garampi must now appoint the internal evaluation committee. The bids are expected to be opened as early as next week, when the review of technical proposals will begin. The assessment of the proposals and the scoring of each plot will follow.
Several factors will weigh in the selection process: quality of services, attention to families and people with disabilities, worker safety and environmental protection. The criteria, the municipality explains, follow the guidelines set out in Law 118/2022 and also aim to raise and diversify the range of services offered on the beach.
In Riccione, meanwhile, the process begins with the first 14 “beach-only” plots. The town council has approved the guidelines for the comparative procedures, and the tenders will be published starting next week. Here too, at least for now, there is no talk of full-fledged bathing establishments: the inland portion, where cabins, amenities and permanent structures stand, remains private. What goes to tender is therefore only the seaward public strip, the area used for umbrellas and lightweight equipment. Further notices will follow later for the remaining concessions.
Riccione has likewise opted for a five-year duration. Each bidder will be able to secure only a limited number of plots, with the stated aim of ensuring competition and encouraging the participation of small and medium-sized businesses. In the rankings, the management project will carry more weight than the economic bid alone.
Particular attention will be paid to environmental sustainability, professional experience and qualifications, the employment inclusion of young people and women, direct management, and the extent to which the activity serves as the operator’s main source of income. Future concession holders will also have to pay, in addition to the standard fee, an annual contribution to the municipality, which will be reinvested in works and services of tourist interest.
“With the launch of these procedures, we are giving a concrete and responsible response to the regulatory obligations imposed by the EU Bolkestein directive,” explains Riccione’s mayor Daniela Angelini, stressing the choice to “put transparency and the enhancement of the city’s tourism model at the centre.”
Councillor for public land Christian Andruccioli explains that the municipality decided to start with the fourteen plots “to test a system that puts merit and sustainability at its core,” while director Cinzia Farinelli points out that the mapping of the concessions made it possible to set guidelines for procedures that are “fair, transparent and open to the widest possible participation.”
Rimini is thus already counting the bids, while Riccione is about to open its own tenders. Two different stages of the same process, one that is beginning to translate the new framework for beach concessions into reality on the ground and which, after these first special-case plots, is set to gradually extend to the rest of the coastline.
