Tourism: the market is booming, but the default rate amongst SMEs remains high

The credit risk rate – that is, the default rate – also improves slightly, falling from 4.6 per cent at the end of 2024 to 4.5 per cent at the end of 2025, but remains well above the national figure which, although rising slightly, stood at 3.3 per cent at the end of last year. This trend could well continue in the coming months, when Crif forecasts a gradual deterioration in the credit risk of Italian limited companies as a whole (i.e. across all sectors), primarily due to the international geopolitical context, whilst the tourism sector could continue to improve slightly, precisely as a result of global uncertainty that is bringing back to Italia (and more generally to Europe) tourist flows – and consequently investment – which in recent years had been directed mainly towards destinations outside the EU.

However, the gap from which tourism businesses are starting is too wide for them to make up the lost ground. Whilst Crif’s outlook describes a ‘base case’ scenario (a short-term agreement between the US and Iran and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz) in which Italian limited companies will reach a default rate of 3.7 per cent by the end of 2026 and 4 per cent in 2027, ‘the increase in risk for tourism businesses will be lower, but will still remain higher’, explains D’Amico, whilst pointing out that analysts do not expect a rate of 5 per cent. The situation would be different were the ‘adverse’ scenario to materialise (i.e. a protracted war), as this would also push the overall default rate to 4.4 per cent in 2026 and 4.9 per cent in 2027, thus approaching the 5 per cent warning threshold.

It must be said, however, as D’Amico points out, that within the leisure macro-sector, the three different sub-sectors behave in very different ways: “The catering sector continues to be the Achilles’ heel from a risk perspective, as it is already at a high level at the end of 2025 – 5.6 per cent – although this represents a very slight reduction compared with December 2024,” explains the CEO. Accommodation services and travel agencies show the opposite trend: significantly lower risk, but on the rise: accommodation has risen from 2.1 per cent to 2.4 per cent and travel agencies from 1.5 per cent to 1.8 per cent.

There is another aspect that reflects the state of a sector which is growing, driven by market demand, yet is structurally fragile at the same time: this is the payment performance monitored by Cribis (a company in the Crif group), which is significantly worse than the national average: in June 2026, tourism businesses paying their suppliers on time accounted for just 23.4 per cent of the total, compared with 42 per cent of the Italia total.

Finally, Crif has carried out an analysis of the geopolitical risks affecting the sector: global tensions and armed conflicts obviously also have an impact on the tourism sector, which Crif has assessed as ‘moderate’ compared to the impact, for example, that on certain manufacturing sectors, given that these effects are primarily indirect – such as the rise in fuel prices, which has caused airfares to soar, and the closure or diversion of certain flight routes, which undoubtedly discourage some tourists from travelling to distant countries. However, this very factor could, conversely, encourage Italian and European travellers to favour local destinations, with clear benefits for the domestic market.