For tourism, today, a year to forget is coming to an end:
in the last 12 months the pandemic emergency has made over 240 million tourist presences vanish (-55%), bringing our tourist market back to the levels of 1969,
over 50 years ago .
A serious blow not only to accommodation and tourism services activities, but also to shops and public establishments, which this year saw the disappearance of 50 billion euros of consumption that they would have generated this year, along with travelers.
These are the dramatic estimates of the tourism sector prepared by the Florence Tourist Studies Center for Assoturismo Confesercenti.
New Year's Eve
- The lockdown established for the end of the year alone will cost the tourism system at least 3.5 million Italian and foreign tourists, who would have spent stays in the various Italian locations for an estimated total of 10.4 million presences and spending in goods and services of 1.2 billion euros.
According to the calendar position, in fact, the New Year 2021 would have favored travel for tourist reasons, as it would have distributed the flows over a period of at least 5 days (from Wednesday 30/12 to Sunday 3/1).
The budget of 2020
- The worthy conclusion of a terrible year for the sector.
In the last twelve months 83.6 million overnight stays of Italian tourists and 157.1 million foreign tourists have been lost, while arrivals have suffered a drop of -61.8%, reaching 50.2 million.
As has been pointed out several times during the year, the greatest contraction was recorded for foreigners, who spent around 63.5 million nights in our country, 71.2% less than in 2019. Less negative values for the overnight stays of compatriots, which should amount to 132.5 million (-38.7%).
The impact on consumption
- The collapse of tourist presences has determined a direct impact in terms of expenditure poured into the national economic system, due to a lower demand for goods and services in the various sectors of activity.
Considering, in addition to the movement of tourists in official accommodation facilities, we also add the flow of vacationers in second homes, guests with friends / relatives or in other 'unofficial' structures, the estimated lost tourist consumption reaches 50.1 billion euros, of which over 32.9 billion (65.7%) in tourism consumption by foreigners and over 17.1 billion (34.3%) in spending by compatriots.
"It is an unprecedented crisis for the sector, with tourist presences more than halved and prospects still zero: it is difficult, in fact, for the flow of travelers to resume before the second half of next year", says Vittorio Messina, national president of Assoturismo Confesercenti .
"In this situation, a plan is needed to restart: the non-repayable support must continue, but substantial investments are needed aimed at relaunching tourism companies. A sector that is among the most affected by the pandemic emergency, but which is vital for the recovery of our economy, of which it normally contributes to directly and indirectly generate 13% of GDP ".