Stable tourism in 2024 thanks to arrivals from abroad

The Ttg Travel Experience, the most important B2B event in the tourism industry, is kicking off in Rimini until Friday. A three-day event organised by the Italian exhibition group (Ieg) with the participation of 2,700 exhibitors, 55 start-ups, more than 200 events and over a thousand buyers from 75 countries. Buyers selected thanks to the collaboration with Ice Agenzia and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the support of Italian Exhibition Group's international network of regional advisors. This lays the foundations for next year after a successful 2024. During the round table that preceded the inauguration ceremony Daniela Santanché, Minister of Tourism, anticipated that "2024 should see a +2% increase in tourists compared to 2023. But in February we saw +7%, in March +11%, in April a drop and in May +13%. It means that we are succeeding together, as a team, in deseasonalising because Italy has all the elements to have tourism 12 months a year and therefore be able to regulate flows with various offers'. Instead, overtourism is dismissed as if it were blasphemy. 'We must stop counting how many heads of tourists arrive. Italy is a nation of quality, not quantity,' the minister continues. 'The numbers of tourist heads say little compared to the trend we must move towards, which is qualitative. Because tourism must not be a threat to the territories but an opportunity. The challenge is to have quality tourism by focusing on services and staff training'.

The hospitality industry faces many challenges including those brought by digital technology, primarily artificial intelligence. On technology, Franco Gattinoni, president of the Federation of Organised Tourism (FTO), launches an alarm to politics: 'We invest a lot in technology but then we are confronted with bureaucracy and the risk of leaving everything to foreign platforms. On Ai Bernabò Bocca, president of Federalberghi, sees positive spin-offs for the sector and adds. "I believe that artificial intelligence is like a Formula 1 car: you have to know how to drive it. We are very late compared to what is happening around the world, but since we do not intend to sell out our tourism product as we are doing in other sectors and we are jealous of the Italian character of our product, we have to train people who can drive these machines. We have no intention of giving the keys of our hotels to large international groups that have already invested in artificial intelligence and therefore lead the market'. Regarding the application of the Bolkestein directive Gian Marco Centinaio, Vice-President of the Senate, recalls 'The issue of bathing establishments, we have already said, is complex. It is one of the sectors of Italian tourism, and not only Italian, because if we go to France, Spain, Portugal it is on the agenda. It is an issue that is becoming European. In Italy, the government has sought a mediation between the needs of our bathers and European indications. A positive mediation that allows us to try to look to the future, I am optimistic. But I make another reasoning, I don't want to take power away from the Italian State, but we come to the bathing issue because someone has imposed it on us with the Bolkestein directive, which is beginning to have its age. And given that we are at the beginning of a European legislature, given that this is also an issue in other countries, my message is: let us try to lobby through our MEPs, the European Commissioners and all those who represent our countries, who care about the issue of bathing and tourism, let us try to put the Bolkestein issue back on the table because Mr Frits Bolkestein told us that he should stay out of the directive and because almost all the parties in the constitutional arc have said so. Let us bring the Bolkestein issue back to the attention of the European Parliament and the EU commission and take the bathers out of Bolkestein as we promised and try to look at the future in a different way."

Ttg is also the place to draw an initial balance for 2024. For Bocca, the year should close with a result in line with the values of 2023 "a record year with arrivals from Europe and the USA while Italians stayed in Italy," the president recalls. This year we will confirm the results thanks to the presences in the cities of art while the inland areas suffer'. Forecasts for 2025 are good "but the winds of war and a possible escalation in the Middle East are worrying". On the short-term rental front, according to Bocca, Cin has not solved the problem and "the only solution is to turn those flats offered all year round on the platforms into hotels".

2024 has not been an easy year due to the adverse economic situation that has affected families. "Choices are influenced by the manoeuvre decisions and the impact of inflation, which have been reflected in the choice of whether to go on holiday and for how many days," explains Patrizia Rinaldis, president of Federealberghi Rimini, Italy's most important territorial organisation. "The result: shorter holidays and a lot of attention to the budget. So the season has been saved by the increase in arrivals from abroad, which have reached a share of 30% from 17-18% in previous years". Germany is as always the first country of origin, but arrivals from Eastern Europe are on the rise. "Flights connecting Rimini airport with the East have doubled and bring Poles, Hungarians, Czechs and Slovaks, customers with a good spending power," Patrizia Rinaldis points out. "Now we need more connections with Germany and the Benelux countries. Another thorn for the sector are the road and rail connections, with traffic jams at the Bologna junction holding back weekend tourists. For next year, the hope is to 'return to the numbers of 2019. We are getting closer and it will be arrivals from abroad that will allow us to reach that goal'.

Then there is open-air tourism, which this year sees a stabilisation of the results seen in 2023. Arrivals are expected to be around 11 million with a clear prevalence of foreign guests, around 55% of the total, mostly from Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. This segment offers more than 1.5 million beds every day for an annual business that, including induced activities, is close to 8 billion, say Faita Federcamping, while employment exceeds 100 thousand people. Arrivals of Italian guests are down. In total, admissions are expected to be close to 71 million.