The tourism crisis

The PD: 'Falling salaries and empty beaches. Meloni confronts the real Italy'. Fdi replies: falsehood

The Democratic Party goes on the attack against the executive accused of ignoring the country's difficulties. Rai also in the crosshairs

by Rome Editorial Staff

10 August 2025Aggiornato il 10 agosto alle ore 17,54

5' min read

Key points

European MP Zan: Meloni gets out of the palaces and confronts the real Italy
The lunge of the Dem components in the Rai surveillance committee
D'Attorre: stagnant wages and empty beaches, government on Mars

5' min read

The Democratic Party launches a harsh lunge against the government over the tourism crisis that is also emptying the beaches due to high prices. Several members of the Democratic Party, starting with secretary Elly Schlein, are sharply criticising the government: the drop in the number of visitors to beaches and holiday resorts 'is a sign that Italian families are struggling more and more, prices have naturally increased but wages have not, which is why we insist' on the minimum wage. Schlein, speaking to journalists on the sidelines of her participation in the Festa dell'Unità in Villadossola (VB), added: 'The beach clubs' union tells us of a 15% drop in admissions, Altroconsumo tells us of a 34% increase in costs: this is how many Italian families are having a bitter time and are unable to leave, and Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government has not dealt with this for two and a half years'.

Alessandro Zan, a PD MEP and member of the secretariat, hits the same note: 'Salaries are falling, prices are rising, and for millions of Italians holidays are now a mirage. Where is Giorgia Meloni's Wonderland, the one where everything works perfectly? The premier continues to sell us the Italy of postcards while the real country is that of salty receipts and holidays spent at home'.

European MP Zan: Meloni get out of the palaces and engage with the real Italy

According to Zan, 'in a country where people struggle to make ends meet and cannot afford beach umbrellas and hotels, talking about tourism as "one of the driving forces of the economy" is a mockery', Meloni, the MEP's invitation to the Prime Minister, 'leave the palaces and meet the real Italy: the one that does not ask for selfies on the seashore, but for salaries that allow you to get there'.

The lunge of the Dem components in the RAI supervisory committee

In the same vein, the Democratic Party's members of the Rai Vigilance Commission accused the RAI of sweetening the narrative of the sector's numbers. 'Once again Rai chooses to paint a country that is not there. In the report on tourism, the narrative is that of a record summer, with August set to 'fill up' and a healthy sector. The reality, however, tells a different story. More and more Italians are giving up their holidays. Purchasing power has plummeted: for many, even an umbrella on the beach has become a luxury'.

The Dem exponents in the Vigilanza Rai committee also point out that "according to the beach union, beach umbrellas occupied are 15% less than last year. Hoteliers expect a drop in admissions, while Altroconsumo reports that accommodation prices have risen by 34% since 2020. Wages, on the other hand, are falling: -7.5% compared to 2021 (OECD data). Even the president of Federalberghi admitted this, recalling that 'tourism is linked to payroll'. And in the meantime, workers in the sector continue to live in precariousness, as demonstrated by the lifeguards' strike in Rimini for salaries that are too low'.

The crisis, they continued, 'is real and affects hundreds of thousands of families, but the public television service continues to sugarcoat the situation, thus lending its editorial line to the government's desire to clamp down on dissent and prevent a free and pluralist public debate. We demand a truly independent RAI, which tells the country as it is and not as the government wants it to appear. Wages, inflation, precariousness and the right to holidays are not details: they are the picture of an Italy in difficulty and deserve to be at the centre of public information'.

D'Attorre: stagnant wages and empty beaches, government on Mars

Also pointing out the crisis in the sector is Alfredo D'Attorre of the PD secretariat: 'The images of the half-empty beaches, not those of the rich but those once frequented en masse by the Italian middle class, are the symbol of the increasingly deep separation between Meloni's triumphalist narrative and the real condition of families. The Prime Minister and her government now live in a parallel reality, out of touch with the real everyday life of the vast majority of Italians'. The stagnation of Italian wages, he explains, 'has been made even heavier by the inflationary wave of the last few years and is now the real Italian emergency, along with the cuts to healthcare and public education. All this,' he continues, 'is far from the perception of a government that lives on Mars, fiercely opposed to the minimum wage, immobile on the lack of contractual renewals, blind to the effects of job insecurity, incapable of devising any concrete measures to defend the purchasing power of families'.

Fdi: far from crisis, Italy top in the Mediterranean for tourism

The reply comes from Fratelli d'Italia deputy Gianluca Caramanna, head of the party's Tourism department and advisor to Tourism Minister Daniela Santanchè. "These days we record the umpteenth nauseating polemic of the left, fuelled by its reference media, which speaks of a 'holiday crisis' and of 'Italians giving up their holidays'. As usual falsehoods, and one only has to look at the data to realise the work done by the government in this sector. The first two summer months saw Italy at the top of the Mediterranean tourist market'.

"For the month of August, and in particular for the two middle months straddling the August bank holiday, mountain tourism recorded the best figures (47.4 per cent) with peaks of over 50 per cent in the vicinity of the bank holiday. Overall, over 6.8 million arrivals are estimated for the summer in the mountains (+4.8% compared to summer 2024). Overall, for the four-month period from June to September, 70 million arrivals are estimated (5 million more, or +7.69%, over 2024), with a turnover of €15 billion for hotel bookings. But what should be pointed out is the 43% increase in bookings for October stays already recorded in June, an important index of the ability to de-seasonalise that the Italian tourist offer is capable of proposing". "Reality, therefore," Caramanna emphasises, "tells of the success of a tourism model desired and supported by the Meloni government, which has had the ability to grasp the fact that the offer is being remodelled and readjusted: no longer just the sea, but also the mountains, cities of art, and inland areas, increasingly far from the classic dichotomous high season/low season approach. No longer that mass tourism, unlivable and congested but deseasonalised and delocalised as an answer to overtourism, which the left has shown itself to oppose only in words. A model that is instead proving successful and that has allowed us in Europe to overtake France this year, coming in behind only Spain'.

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