Sliding streets, semi-deserted beaches and restaurants with a few seats. The data on expensive holidays photograph an Italian summer with fewer tourists, or at least, with fewer Italians. And it was supposed to be a record-breaking season despite the climate changes and fires. All the fault of the prices, increasingly prohibitive, which weigh on the pockets of Italian families and who for this reason prefer to go abroad, where life is cheaper. International travellers, Americans and Asians in the lead but also Europeans, take care of boosting tourism in the Bel Paese. And so the Bel Paese becomes more and more one luxury destination for foreign vacationers.
Italians on the run for prices: demand up to -30%
A hot summer – despite the autumn parenthesis that has just passed – where, however, the turnouts are not what was expected. Second Federturismo the federation led by Marina Lalli adhering to Confindustria, despite the growth in arrivals from abroad (+4%), the shores of the region complain up to 30% less attendance, while the percentages of Italians who opt for a holiday abroad are on the rise. But it would be a problem if even the Americans, Germans, French, English and so on began to snub Italy, now too expensive, choosing alternative destinations such as Spain, Tunisia, Egypt, Albania and Montenegro. Paradoxically, Japan is also becoming increasingly popular thanks to the cheap yen and the big deals of Gulf airlines.
How Italian tourism is changing
According to Federturismo, inflation and high living costs have led to a change of destination for our compatriots. But not only. The holidays some Italians will also be shorter and spending compression will bring i back into fashion Last minute trips. "What happened this summer - said Lalli - is an alarm bell that requires all of us to reflect because increasingly frequent and intense heat waves could lead to a change in the habits of tourists in the coming years, modifying the geography of holidays towards cooler destinations than southern Europe or to postpone spring-autumn holidays, especially in the case of foreign customers”.
But the paradox, according to Assoutenti, is that despite the reduction of vacation days, the grocery will be more high: "the 2023 summer holidays will cost Italians a good 1,2 billion euros more than in 2022, albeit with fewer nights away from home", explained the president of Assoutenti, Furio Truzzi.
Italy is increasingly a luxury destination for foreigners
To resist is the luxury tourism. For Alessandro Massimo Nucara, general manager of Federalberghi, "the luxury component, those who spend more than 1000 euros a day, are doing better because it is a market segment less exposed to price increases".
He also spoke on the subject Bernabo Bocca, president of Federalberghi: “Summer 2023 is not giving a good performance as regards our internal market, essentially Italian tourism has suffered a decline while the best results are seen at an international level. The percentage of Americans is high – he added -, Asians are returning, and the presence of foreign tourism in our cities of art is strong. But for the Italians the dish is crying, they had to calculate each item of expense to the thousandth and, despite this, many had to remodulate the size of the trip. The car is preferred, a sign that train and plane transfers have reached prices that are not accessible to everyone,” Bocca told Sole 24 Ore.
What seems clear is that while we welcome wealthy tourists ready to spend in our country, Italy for Italians is becoming too expensive to spend their own summer holidays. And so either the stay is reduced or, if possible, one moves to cheaper places such as Greece, Croatia or Albania, the new Maldives of Europe.
