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TOURISM

Italy’s economy suffers as tourist gems become ‘dead cities’

Just over a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, Venice remains a ghost town. Portofino, a colourful playground for the jet-set on the Ligurian coast, and Varenna on the shores of Lake Como are also deserted. The coronavirus has taken a heavy toll on tourism in Italy.

Published: 28 March 2021 10:09 CEST
Updated: 28 March 2021 12:24 CEST
Italy's economy suffers as tourist gems become 'dead cities'
A key sector for Italy is collapsing due to the pandemic. Photo: Marco Bertorello/AFP

Italy is the world’s fifth-most visited destination – and with a third wave now under way, there is no obvious end in sight to the tourism crisis the country faces.

The collapse in the number of tourists to Italy was jaw-dropping last year, with only 25.5 million foreign visitors spending at least one night in the peninsula, versus 65 million in 2019 – a drop of more than 60 percent.

That corresponded to revenue of only 17.45 billion euros, 26.85 billion euros less than the prior year, according to new figures from the Bank of Italy.

“The situation is really dramatic and everything must be done to revive a sector so vital for our country,” said the president of the Italian Union of Chambers of Commerce, Carlo Sangalli.

Nearly 100,000 companies in Italy’s tourism sector are at risk of bankruptcy, according to the research institute Demoskopika, with a potential loss of 440,000 jobs.

‘Even George Clooney doesn’t come anymore’

“The year 2020 was catastrophic for us,” said Marina Denti, owner of a leather store in Varenna, a picturesque fishing village on Lake Como.

She is still sorely lacking in foreign customers, especially big-spending Americans, an absence that saw her turnover drop by 80 percent last year.

“Even George Clooney doesn’t come anymore with this pandemic,” she said, referring to the area’s most famous homeowner, proprietor of an opulent villa on the other side of the lake, in Laglio.

Varenna, on Lake Como in Lombardy. Photo: Brigitte HAGEMANN / AFP

Before coronavirus swept across the country and beyond, tourism accounted for nearly 14 percent of gross domestic product for Italy, the eurozone’s third-largest economy.

The collapse of this key economic driver, with hotels and restaurants closed for months on end, helped plunge the country last year into the worst recession since World War II.

‘Venice has become a dead city’

“Deprived of tourists, Venice has become a dead city like Pompeii, it’s sad when you walk down the street,” said Anna Bigai, one of the city’s tour guides, who has only done a dozen guided tours over the past year.

Throughout Italy, overnight stays of foreign tourists fell by 54 percent to 184.1 million in 2020 and the outlook for 2021 remains bleak.

“International tourism in Italy should not return to pre-pandemic levels before 2023,” warned the director of the national tourism agency, Giorgio Palmucci.

READ ALSO: ‘New model’: How Florence and Venice plan to rebuild tourism after the coronavirus crisis

Even Portofino, a popular destination for celebrities and billionaires from all over the world, has not been spared. Its Rolex and Christian Dior stores remain desperately empty, waiting for the return of rich foreign customers.

“In 2020, we had the worst year in a decade,” sighed Emanuela Cattaneo, owner of a wine bar on the port, lamenting the absence of American and English customers.

The coast near Portofino in busier years. Photo: Olivier MORIN / AFP

Still, a few rare foreign tourists have enjoyed the unusual calm. Rainer Lippert from Heidelberg, Germany, came to Milan, where he and his family were admiring the view from the roof of the city’s Gothic Duomo.

“It’s fantastic to be here when there are not so many people around,” he said. “Given the circumstances it’s the best choice we could make.”

Within days of Lippert’s visit, the Duomo was once again closed for coronavirus restrictions.

READ ALSO: How soon can Italy hope to restart tourism this summer?

To try to get things moving again, Italian train companies will offer “Covid-free” high-speed rail links between Rome and Milan beginning in early April, a first in Europe. All staff and passengers will be tested before boarding.

The airline Alitalia launched a similar initiative last year on some domestic and international flights.

Despite current international restrictions on travel – and the fact that most of Italy is currently in some form of lockdown – Ryanair announced on Wednesday that the airline is expanding its summer flight schedule between the UK and Italy.

The Italian tourism minister has expressed that the country is keen to restart tourism as soon as infection rates fall and vaccination campaigns pick up pace. Since plans for a health passport are still in early stages, it remains too early to say yet when Italy’s tourism could re-start.

Find all The Local’s updates on travel to Italy here. 

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ECONOMY

Two-thirds of young Italians now living with parents as unemployment rises

The number of people aged 18-34 still living at home is now as high as 75 percent in some parts of Italy, new official data shows, as wages shrink and youth unemployment grows.

Published: 16 May 2024 15:24 CEST
Two-thirds of young Italians now living with parents as unemployment rises

The stereotype of the Italian ‘mammone‘, who lives with mamma until well into his 30s or beyond, is alive and well as the number of young people living at home has risen again according to the latest annual economic report by national statistics bureau Istat, published on Wednesday.

In 2022, some 67.4 percent of all 18-34 year-olds in Italy were living with at least one parent, an increase of almost eight points in twenty years – the rate in 2002 was 59.7 percent.

The number was as high as 75 percent in the southern regions of Campania and Puglia, Istat found.

The phenomenon remained, as ever, more prevalent in young men, with 74 percent of them compared to 66 percent of women in the same age group living at home.

“Today’s young people have increasingly protracted transitions into adulthood,” read the report.

The phenomenon is not unique to Italy, with the most recent Eurostat data, from 2021, showing a similar trend among the 16-29 age group in Italy as well as other southern European countries including Croatia, Greece, and Portugal.

While cultural factors are often suggested as a potential cause, with Italians known for close family ties, Italy’s economic situation appears to play a far larger role in keeping young people living at home for longer.

Istat’s report pointed to a high prevalence of insecure employment among younger Italians, as well as shrinking wages and decreased spending power.

“Permanent employment, which between 2004 and 2023 grew by +9.7 percent, has increased only among the employed over the age of fifty,” Istat noted, partly attributing this to a squeeze on pensions in recent years which means many are retiring later.

READ ALSO:

Italy meanwhile has one of the EU’s highest rates of youth unemployment, which had risen further to 22 percent as of February 2024, according to Eurostat data.

Italian workers of all ages were getting poorer, Istat found, and the number of working people in poverty had risen to 14 percent.

“Despite the improvements observed in the labour market in recent years,” the report said, “Italy retains a very high share of employed people in economically vulnerable conditions.

“Between 2013 and 2023, the purchasing power of gross wages in Italy decreased by 4.5 percent, while in the other major economies of the EU27 it grew at rates between 1.1 percent in France and 5.7 percent in Germany.”

Within this context, the Istat report noted that young Italians were also getting married five years later than in 2002, with men now waiting until an average age of 36.5 before tying the knot, and women 33.6.

KEY POINTS: What is Italy’s government doing to help families?

The age at which women have their first child had also risen, to 31.6 years against 29.7 in 2002.

Italy’s birth rate in 2023 fell to a record low of 379,000 after 15 years of decline, Istat reported in January.

“The substantial decline in births of recent years has deep roots, and is due to the parenting choices (fewer children and increasingly later) of Italian couples today and those of yesterday,” Istat’s latest report found, reporting that lower birth rates 30 years ago also contributed.

Italy’s plunging birth rate and ageing population has been a hot-button topic for the current government, which said this month that it aims to launch a Vatican-backed campaign to increase births to 500,000 per year by 2033.

Italy’s birth rate had previously been boosted by a higher number of births among foreign nationals in Italy, however the number of babies born to non-Italian mothers had also dropped, Istat said, bringing it in line with the trend among the Italian population.

The shift was attributed to various factors, including the challenges immigrants face and the high employment rates among foreign women, many of whom are employed in demanding but low-paid full-time jobs.

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