Proximity tourism, done in isolated and uncrowded places, as wild as possible, where nature and air are uncontaminated and where physical and social distancing can be maintained. This is the scenario that according to the Centro Studi del Touring Club Italiano, will emerge, in all likelihood, in the coming months. All of this will recall the tourism of the second post-war period, with a substantial farewell to travel abroad.
The picture drawn by the Touring seems to have been made with a brush to illustrate the world of camping. For this reason, the association believes that 2020 will mark their golden moment. The emerging trend is confirmed by the traffic data recorded between the beginning of March and the beginning of May by the Pitchup portal, a European instant booking platform for outdoor holidays that offers over 4,200 structures in 65 countries.
“We are witnessing unequivocal signs of recovery of interest to our structures and our platform by users and managers,” commented Daniel Yates, managing director of Pitchup. “Camping makes it possible to maintain social distancing, a rule of life that citizens of all countries affected by the pandemic have had to accept and that will probably remain part of our habits for a long time. The managers of the structures that will be able to trust customers, guaranteeing safety and sanitizing the spaces, will have the opportunity to save the season“.
The entrepreneurs push
Managers are responding well: from mid-March to mid-April (i.e. in full lockdown), Italy is the country that has recorded the highest number of requests for new members to the Pitchup network: +138% compared to the same period of last year. Local initiatives such as Open Air Next Step, which we talked about yesterday, also show that Italian entrepreneurs are pushing on the accelerator to try to recover.
According to the data collected by Pitchup, the average number of days of stay recorded for bookings made from 9 March to 26 April (for stays between July and October) in all the countries in which the portal is active is 4.7 days, in growth compared to 4.4 days in the same period last year. The average for June is lower (3.3 days), reflecting the permanent climate of uncertainty about the end of the lockdown.
The numbers of Italy
In the period from March 9 to May 4, the Italians have not stopped looking for holiday destinations on the Pitchup platform. The total pages viewed by Italian users for each type of structure present on Pitchup (from simple pitches for tents to real holiday villages), sees Lombardy in the lead (19.3%), followed by Tuscany (18.7% ), Veneto (12.8%) and Piedmont (10.3%). The most sought after region for this category was Lombardy, followed by Veneto and Piedmont, the three regions most affected by the Coronavirus, which probably signaled the fear of not being able to leave the regional borders in these areas.
In Croatia, the Aminess Hotels & Campsites group expands with the acquisition of Dalmacija Hotel