A window that opens to take a fresh look at the epochal change we are experiencing. This will also be the Bit Digital Edition, online from Sunday 9 to Tuesday 11 May for operators and from Wednesday 12 to Friday 14 for the travelling public, thanks to Bit Special Talks, a special section of the Bit Talks schedule, trying to build a bridge towards a more extended present.

Starting with the discovery of what is very close to our usual lives - the unvisited neighbourhoods of our cities, our surroundings, the spaces and waters of our own provinces or regions - to the possibilities of suborbital and space mobility from next year and for the following decades, which are already well underway.

As part of Bit Talk’s very full programme (more than 90 online workshops are planned, 13 of which are also available in English), the visionary conversations of Bit Special Talk will focus on innovations in work and leisure and their hybridisation, as well as those of the cities and natural spaces of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and those of continuing health. At the heart of this is a constant granular use of data to transform macro trends into real opportunities for revitalisation and growth for the sector. Imagining today a trip in the coming months thus becomes a three-dimensional kaleidoscope of possibilities, perspectives, discoveries and explorations in places never seen and never imagined, supported by a wealth of data and studies never before seen in Bit and coming from the most authoritative sources.

For the first time Bit will be partnered with Oxford Economics, which will present here the European Tourism Forecast, unanimously considered one of the most reliable forecasts thanks to its ability to combine sectoral approach and macroeconomic vision, while the presentation of the XXIV Report on Italian Tourism with the analyses of CNR-IRISS and Turistica returns to Bit Digital Edition. Authoritative analysts such as BVA Doxa, CENSIS, CISET of Ca' Foscari University, Euromonitor, UNWTO and Milano & Partners will also be presenting data interpreting the transformations in tourism.

And if, in order to understand the complexity of the changes underway, even in the tangible reality of economic sectors, the broader horizon of philosophy is needed now more than ever, Bit Special Talks will host the reflections of leading names in contemporary thought such as philosophers Federico Campagna and Salvatore Veca, who will converse with Franco Iseppi in an event in collaboration with Touring Club Italiano, or the expert on the economy of culture Guido Guerzoni. Happy interactions with the art world will be explored by Andrea Lissoni, Director of the Haus der Kunst (HdK) in Munich, critic and curator Francesco Bonami, and Umberto Angelini of La Triennale di Milano with artist Nico Vascellari and a talk by the Fondazione Prada.

A new way of travelling also means rethinking spaces and flows in micro and macro directions. International architects such as Carlo Ratti, Italo Rota, Rachaporn Choochuey, Stefano Boeri and Patricia Urquiola will talk about spaces where no one has gone before, while the windows of opportunity opening up in the hyper-neighbourhood will be explored in terms of digital tourism and virtual experiences, but also of super proximity in our cities. The forthcoming prospects for space tourism will be explored with Roberto Battiston, past-president of the ASI (Italian Space Agency).

The return to nature brought to the fore by the pandemic, with the growing awareness that we are part of an interconnected whole, will be addressed from the innovative perspective of plant intelligence with internationally renowned biologist Stefano Mancuso. At the same time, cultural tourism is opening up to new users, such as (post) adolescents, who need new languages, new tools and new channels to be engaged with these will be discussed in the meetings with figures capable of interpreting the contemporary and pop soul of visions of tomorrow and the aftermath of tomorrow: from the futurologist and cyberpunk star Bruce Sterling and Tyler Brûlé, founder of Monocle - probably the most exclusive business magazine in the world - or from  Colapesce & Dimartino, de facto winners at the last Sanremo Festival, to the mysterious performer Myss Keta, the presenter and producer Costantino della Gherardesca and the presenter-rapper-writer La Pina, who interviews her father Andrea Branzi, legendary theorist of the relations between man and landscape.

Bit Special Talks, the new name of the innovative discussion space entrusted to the editorial direction of Carlo Antonelli, is intended to underline the need and desire to offer tools to the tourism industry to deal with the changing times we are experiencing; tools that require a comparison between different disciplines in order to obtain the most complete scenario that can represent a valuable "toolbox" to support operators in their decisions and forecasts in the years to come.

The quality and scope of the Bit Digital Event programme led RAI to sponsor the event.

The schedule and detailed programme of Bit Talks can be found at https://bit.fieramilano.it/topics/programma-.html.

For updated information on Bit Digital Edition: www.bit.fieramilano.it, @BitMilano.

Pre-registration has been active since 1 May.