On the occasion of the webinar organized by FAITA-Federcamping last week, Marco Brogna, Professor at La Sapienza and President of the master’s degree course in Tourism (in the photo above), supervised the analysis of the official data of the sector in the pre-Covid. According to the World Tourism Observatory, the starting scenario saw, in 2017, 122.3 million tourist arrivals, with a growth of 6.8% compared to the previous year. According to Eurostat 2019, Italy is the third European country for presences in the Schengen area, behind Spain and France and ahead of Germany. For international presences, our country ranked second, after Spain.
The WTTC, on the other hand, states that in 2018 tourism was worth 6% of Italian GDP (for a total of 99 billion euros), but by adding the related activities it reaches 13.2%. In this context, industry accounts for 20%, while agriculture stops at 2.1%. Tourism must therefore be given the weight it deserves. In the same year, the balance of the tourist balance of payments was positive for 14,598 million euros, with a 5.7% increase compared to the previous year and a constant trend (Bank of Italy data). Tourism is therefore the real engine of the Italian economy.
So why do hotels close and many entrepreneurs struggle even in the years of tourist success? The answer is that there are huge territorial, sectoral and sub-sectoral imbalances, with large performance gaps between regions and sectors. The territorial differences partly follow the classic north-east, north-west and center-south division.
In this context, the outdoor sector, according to Eurostat, in 2018 was worth about 40 million admissions, with a trend of growth. In 2019 the sector had a turnover of 5 billion euros, with a growth forecast for 2020 of 5%. ISTAT shows how tourist presences grow a lot over time, but also how Italians are decreasing, so much so that they drop below foreign ones starting from 2016-2017.
Within the tourism container, in 2018 open-air weighed much less than hotels (7.9 per cent in terms of arrivals and 15.6 per cent in terms of presences, against – respectively – 75.5 and 65.2%), but in any case constituted 44.8% of the presences of the entire non-hotel sector.
Among foreigners, the attendance is mainly German (49.3%), Dutch (17.9%) and Swiss (7.3%). “In my opinion it’s not a good indicator,” Brogna points out. “We must also look strongly at other markets“. The average stay is the highest in the tourism sector: 6.6 nights, against 2.9 for hotels and 4.8 for non-hotel in general. Brogna stresses, however, that we cannot be too optimistic, because tourists who come from countries that “weigh” little on overall arrivals are the ones who stop more.
In all this, however, the average stay is decreasing: from 2005 to 2018 it dropped from 6.7 to 6.5 nights. The only region that has improved this figure is Lazio (from 6.9 to 10.2 nights, while the worst performance was recorded by Molise (from 14.9 to 8 nights) and Basilicata (from 13.1 to 6.5 nights). To suffer least of all is Tuscany, which remained substantially stable (from 6.9 to 6.6 nights). Despite the good overall results, the sector before Covid was therefore in contrast, recording decreases in terms of arrivals, attendance and average stay.
Today the tourist attitude is changing, and also rapidly. The offer must therefore also vary, because we have moved from the motivational holiday to the experiential one and then to the emotional one. To remain competitive, we must follow the same path.
Professor Brogna reserves a final analysis for the period marked by the pandemic. With Covid, Italian tourism has lost an average of 40%, but not fairly. Hotels and cities of art, for example, have suffered much more than others. To date, 20% of hotel licenses have been returned and in general the flow of foreign tourists has almost disappeared. Some regions have resisted (such as Tuscany, Veneto and Puglia), others have experienced a more marked crisis. However, some sub-sectors did very well, such as open-air and farm holidays, which have contained losses by around 20%. And this happened throughout the national territory.
Covid has done what in many years had not been possible: increase the number of Italians and extend the average stay from 6.6 to over 8 nights. In short, open-air tourism has been ready, despite still having – according to Brogna – an enormous unexpressed potential, equal to about 50%. The post-pandemic is therefore a great opportunity to relaunch.
The other parts of this story
- FAITA-Federcamping: together with 4 universities they paint the picture of the Italian sector
- The evolutionary models of the Italian open-air sector in Ca’ Foscari’s research for FAITA
- FAITA-Federcamping: University of Teramo addresses the issue of regulatory obstacles
- MIBACT and ENIT: institutional voices that have yet to find the right measure with respect to open-air
Baia Holiday: almost completed the Spa inside the Camping Village Cavallino