Covid Free Islands and transport, the Government is thinking of summer

ROME - If on the one hand, Istat takes a new merciless picture of the blackest crisis in the history of Italian tourism (Italian travels in 2020 reached their all-time low, 37 million and 527 thousand with 231 million and 197 thousand overnight stays, -44.8% for holidays and -67.9% for business), on the other hand around the sector most massacred by the pandemic which is worth 13% of GDP, proposals and tests for restarting, ranging from vaccination passport to Covid Free islands, from 110% "safe" transport extended to accommodation facilities.

And we also begin to talk about dates: the tourism minister Massimo Garavaglia speculates on June 2: "It is our national holiday and it could be a reopening date for us".

Encouraging Prime Minister Draghi, who also stresses that he cannot give a date, because everything depends on the epidemiological trend and vaccinations: "Garavaglia says in June. Let's hope, maybe even sooner, hi knows. Let's not take the tourist season for abandoned," far from it ".

    To make the islands Covid Free, as Greece is doing, the tourism minister speaks ("we can do it") but also the presidents of Sardinia and Sicily, Christian Solinas and Nello Musumeci, who ask Prime Minister Mario Draghi to "have the courage "to go beyond the proposal to vaccinate only the smaller islands and aim to immunize with the vaccine the entire population of the two largest islands in the Mediterranean and" with a strong tourist vocation ", which" can guarantee important numbers for the recovery of 'national economy ".

A proposal which also applauds the leader of the League, Matteo Salvini: "I am in favor of Sicily and Sardinia and their proposal to buy vaccines from their own pockets in order to start again with tourism".

    The Minister of Economic Development, Giancarlo Giorgetti, speaks instead of the vaccination passport, a possibility being studied by the government, as other countries have done, to attract tourists.

    "We are working - says Garavaglia - on the Green Pass which provides for three conditions, the vaccine, having had Covid and a negative swab. It is not discriminatory and we already exist in Sardinia.

    It is a model that is already taking hold, because to for example, there are already numerous flights that proceed like this ".

    The Minister of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility, Enrico Giovannini, is thinking of working "with Minister Garavaglia" about safe transport in view of the summer.

"We must prepare for summer in advance - he observes - to have a safe transport system both for Italy and abroad".

Also on Alitalia "the Government - he explains - intends to act very soon to also allow the exploitation of the restart phase not only in Italy".

    There is also talk of expanding the superbonus to 110% for business buildings (restaurants, hotels, holiday farms): "It could be complex but we will work on this, and I undertake to discuss it with the Ministry of Economy", announces the minister of the ecological transition, Roberto Cingolani.

    Returning to the Istat report, the effects of the pandemic and the consequent containment measures are evident both for "Italian" trips and for those directed abroad.

Local destinations suffer the least impact, recording a negative variation of 37% (-27.2% in terms of nights, about 76 million less).

For foreign destinations, however, it is a real meltdown: the reduction in travel is 80% and over 100 million overnight stays compared to 2019 (-78.2%).

The sharp decline in tourist demand leaves the primacy of the Northeast unchanged, which is the most chosen destination in 2020 (30.2% of total trips) and, at the same time, the area where most tourists reside is confirmed. (19.7%, 29.8% in terms of travel origin).

Among the regions, Lazio pays the highest price for the drop in travel.

Among others that emerge from the report is the fact that the pandemic has increased the use of private accommodation and therefore among the accommodation facilities, hotels are the most affected.

The use of the car as a means of traveling is even more pronounced.

Finally, intermediation collapses, direct booking definitely prevails.

(HANDLE).