Tourism, according to Coldiretti, Covid caused us to lose 12 billion this summer

A loss of 12 billion euros for the tourism sector: that’s how much, according to Coldiretti, is the steep bill that Covid-19 presented to us in this summer 2020 characterized by few tourists. The 12 billion less comes from lost spending on lodging, dining, transportation, entertainment, and purchases of items and souvenirs: Italian vacations (they were for 93 percent of our compatriots, who decided to stay in Italy this summer: a “patriotic turnaround,” according to Coldiretti) unfortunately failed to offset the lack of foreign tourists on domestic soil (last year, foreigners who arrived in Italy in July, August and September were 16 million).

There were 34 million, according to a Coldiretti/Ixè analysis, Italians who decided to spend a few days on vacation this summer: a 13 percent drop from last year. Italian tourists, however, focused on savings, with an average spending of 588 euros per person, down 25 percent from last year. This is because in 2020, vacations were shorter, less distant and spent largely with family.

“The absence of foreigners on vacation in Italy,” Coldiretti stresses, “burdens tourist hospitality in the most popular destinations that are greatly affected by their absence also because tourists from abroad from countries such as the United States and China traditionally have a high spending capacity. Most affected have been the art cities that are the historic destinations of tourism from abroad with trattorias, restaurants and bars practically empty but also in trouble are the agritourisms where foreigners in some regions traditionally accounted for more than half of the guests in the countryside. The consequences will also be felt by the loss of the positive leverage of tourism on domestic agri-food exports with tourists returning home looking on the shelves for the products tasted during the trip.”

These data also weigh heavily on employment. ISTAT, analyzing tourism data for July, found a decline of 556,000 people employed compared to the same period last year (a -2.4 percent in percentage terms). Influencing this, too, is the near-zeroing of foreign tourists and the decline in Italian tourists. The absence of tourists from abroad, in particular, has had serious consequences: “a significant impact in terms of employment on the activities of restaurants, bars and agritourisms, as well as on direct purchases of agri-food products,” Coldiretti stresses. According to an estimate by the association, about a third of the vacation budget is in fact devoted precisely to food for direct consumption or for the purchase of souvenirs. “At stake,” concludes Coldiretti, “is a Made in Italy tourism system that consists of 612 thousand businesses with over 700 thousand local units and represents 10.1 percent of the national production system, surpassing the manufacturing sector, with 2.7 million workers, 12.6 percent of national employment according to Unioncamere.”

Tourism, according to Coldiretti, Covid caused us to lose 12 billion this summer

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