As we’ve seen at the BIT 2020 - Travel Exhibition Milan, despite solid performance in recent years, the entire sector has to rise to the challenges of sustainability, accessibility, and technological innovation, without neglecting the need to deconcentrate seasonality.
Looking at Italian tourism through a lens of opportunities, challenges and ambitions, what immediately catches our eye is certain distinctive characteristics marking the evolution of this sector in recent years. Thanks to new itineraries and travel motivations, our country is more and more attractive to foreigners and emerging markets, and exceptional performance shows that the Italy brand satisfies these new trends in demand. In fact, foreign tourists outnumbered domestic tourists (at 50.5% of the total), with 217 million nights spent in Italy and total spending of 42 billion euro. In 2019, growth over the year before stood at around 7%, according to value data. What’s more, Italy has surpassed France in the number of visitors coming from extra-European countries, ranking first in world destinations for luxury travel; Italy also enjoys top billing with millennials, families and honeymooners.