Buoyant figures open the seventh edition of the AgrieTour expo in Arezzo from 14-16 November.

Statistics formulated by the AgrieTour national observatory show that in 2007 the number of farms offering holidays in the Lazio region went up by 9 per cent, to 480 (sleeping a total of 6,000), compared to figures from the previous year. This rise is in-line with the national trend, which saw the overall number of farmhouse resorts increase by 9.4 per cent to 18,000. A forecast estimates that the number of nights spent in an Italian farmhouse accommodation in 2008 will be 13 million, a rise of 4.8 per cent on 2007. The industry's annual turnover in 2007 was