The recovery of American tourism in Italy following the pandemic has been inexorable and the forecasts for 2024 are for further growth. Excellent news for the hospitality sector because, beyond the number of travelers arriving from the United States, this is a so-called “high-spending” tourism, which can therefore compensate for the lack of tourists from other parts of the world, such as example Russia.
The numbers were provided by Bernabò Bocca, president of Federalberghi, citing data from the Bank of Italy: in 2019 tourists from the United States spent 5.5 billion euros in our country, while in 2022 the figure stopped at 4.7 billion, but in the first nine months of 2023 they had already spent 5.2 billion, therefore reaching at least the pre-pandemic data and perhaps exceeding them slightly. In 2024, operators expect a decisive overtaking.
«We are grateful and grateful to the American tourists who started traveling once more following Covid and enthusiastically chose Italy as the main country in which to spend their holidays – said Bocca -. Last year we were worried regarding what was happening with Russia, because we knew we were losing tourism that also loved Italy and was a high spender, but we had this pleasant surprise of a very important growth in American tourism which has more than compensated for the loss of Russian tourism.”
On the subject of “big spender” nationalities, Bocca cited the great unknown of Chinese tourism: «Unfortunately for some time we have been expecting the “year of the Chinese” to arrive, in particular of the 300 million rich Chinese, but unfortunately they still arrive in Italy few high-end tourists from China.”
Bocca also reminds us that it is not meaningful to measure the results of tourism in terms of attendance and arrivals: «Balances are made with turnover, not with attendance – he observes -. Italy is a small and fragile container and we need to fill it with high-spending tourism that benefits not only the accommodation facilities but the economy of the entire country.”
#surge #spending #American #tourists #expected
2024-03-17 19:33:06
