Hostel legislation in Italy

Hey everyone!

I hope someone can give me some info about it.

Me and my girlfriend(who's Italian), are studying the idea of opening a small hostel in Italy, but it seems to be a bit hard to find solid information about it.

We've been running hostels in Spain and in Portugal, and the legislation over here, isn't quite clear yet. In the south of Spain, there's no such thing as a "hostel license", so most of the big chains run with a "tourism apartments" license, which can be quite tricky.

Is anyone able to give me some hints about how the things are going in Italy? Is the police coming over very often to check licenses? How's that with the locals? And how well accepted are the hostels by the big hotels and resorts?

Your help is appreciated.