So much for Italian vacations: per Confcommercio, only 2 in 10 Italians feel like packing their bags

So much for Italian vacations, as hoped for by many, primarily Minister of Cultural Heritage Dario Franceschini. According to Confcommercio, Italians have no desire to go on vacation, and they are still too worried about the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic: this is what emerges from a survey conducted by Confcommercio-Confturismo in collaboration with Swg and aimed at investigating Italians’ propensity to travel.

It thus emerged that 57 percent will not leave home this year, while only 20 percent of our compatriots would feel like leaving once the emergency is over. The figure is rounded out by 15 percent of Italians who do not have the financial means to go on vacation, and 8 percent who do not know if they will be able to travel, due to vacation exhaustion or other work commitments.

On the vacation destination for those who will go, most (32%) think a short, two- or three-day vacation, close to home, is most likely. Eighty-five percent consider a trip outside Europe very unlikely, while 75 percent believe European countries are also an unattainable destination for now. But even long vacations in Italy are for the few: 14% consider a week-long vacation close to their city very likely, 19% a trip to a place 250 km from home.

The priority for the end of the emergency will be immersing oneself in nature or being outdoors: 40% of respondents think so. For 34% priority is spending time with people you love, while for 26% seeing new places and for 25% going back to places you love. For 22% the priority is rest, while 21% will think about having fun and 18% about tasting typical products. Only 17% will want to visit a museum, while 11% put sports activity at the top of the list, and 10% will take care of their bodies. Finally, 7% will want to go shopping as soon as the restrictive measures are over, 6% new activities, and, at the bottom of the list, 4% of those who want to go on pilgrimages or visit religious places.

The number of Italians willing to go shopping or buy gifts on vacation is also plummeting (they are only 7 percent: last year, again in April, the percentage was 22 percent), and this, according to Confcommercio, jeopardizes the cross-sectional nature of the tourism economy, which benefits many dectors, from trade to local transportation to culture.

“In this situation,” comments the president of Confturismo-Confcommercio, Luca Patanè,“not to intervene immediately and with effective tools to support the sector’s activities and consumption, with a synchronized maneuver on several fronts, is to deny the fundamentals of the economy and to be absolutely unclear about what the strategic sectors in our country system really are.”

So much for Italian vacations: per Confcommercio, only 2 in 10 Italians feel like packing their bags

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