In the year of the Covid-19, for half of Italians the summer holidays will remain a utopia. According to a survey carried out by Demoskopika, 49% of citizens will stay at home, while 51% have decided to leave despite fears of a second wave of infections, economic worries and mixed moods caused by an exceptional situation which is bringing our economy to its knees. The most coveted destination in this summer of coexistence with the coronavirus will be Sicily, followed by Puglia and Tuscany. Good news for regions that live mainly on tourism and that in the coming months hope to recover the - very heavy - losses suffered during the lockdown period.
After having delved into the difficulties of the splendid Apulian farms and prospects for the Cinque Terre, FIRSTonline has decided to continue its journey among the most popular tourist resorts of the Peninsula right in one of the most visited places in the Trinacria: Taormina, the pearl of the Sicilian east coast.
Perched on a hill overlooking the sea, with Etna in the background and the Greek-Roman Theater to enhance its beauty, Taormina has always fascinated tourists from every corner of the world, willing to face hours by plane just to cross the two splendid arched gates – Porta Catania and Porta Messina – which delimit the ancient village, stroll along the characteristic Corso Umberto, take a dip in the Isola Bella nature reserve, but also let yourself be pampered by one of the many extra-luxury hotels made the small town halfway between Catania and Messina one of the favorite places of elite tourism.
Taormina has just started the 2020 summer season with many fears and only one certainty: the earnings of past years will remain only a mirage. "Our tourism is mainly seasonal, tourists begin to arrive in the month of June, so compared to other places we were able to better contain losses in the months of lockdown", explains to FIRSTonline, Italo Mennella, president of the Association Hoteliers of Taormina. “Despite this – he continues – the prospects for the coming months are not encouraging. We live from day to day, also trying to understand what the decisions of governments and airlines will be. If flights from abroad continue to be scarce, the season risks being greatly compromised".
The town's economy is closely linked to tourist flows from four European countries: France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain. Followed by the United States, Canada and Russia. In hotels, the rate of internationalization of attendance is close to 85%, but with the reduced or even blocked connections and the persistent fear of the coronavirus, the risk is that in 2020 Taormina will remain only the so-called hit and run tourism, made up of Sicilians who decide to spend a few hours or a weekend in the town, without however being able to compensate for the absence of "high added value" tourists.
"At the moment we continue to receive cancellations from foreign customers who should have arrived in the next few days and who instead decided to stay at home for fear of the Coronavirus. Even the wedding groups with which we work so hard in Taormina have all been postponed until next year, while the congress tourism that arrives between September and October is still in doubt", tells us Chiara Catania, owner of theHotel Villa Fiorita, a few steps from Porta Messina. “The only active bookings from abroad are for September-October, months which are still high season for us and on which we are pinning a lot of hope. But we will have to wait to find out how the international situation will evolve ”, she concludes.
“For July-August requests come only from Sicilian tourists, but are limited to one or at most two nights in the weekends." says another hotelier who prefers to remain anonymous. “Some bookings are also beginning to arrive from Northern Italy, but if the situation does not improve we will work at a loss. With this type of request we are not even able to cover the costs. Staying open is not convenient ”.
It is no coincidence that the hotels in Taormina are restarting their activity very slowly. Few have decided to reopen in early June, some will do so in the next few days, while others still prefer to wait until mid-July hoping that in the meantime the picture will be clearer and above all comforting. A piece of advice to those who have chosen Sicily as a destination for the summer holidays, however we feel like giving it: arriving on the island and missing the beauties of Taormina would be a real crime.
