Between 2012 and 2022, a total of over 99,000 retail businesses and 16,000 itinerant businesses disappeared. Tourism helps the growth of hotels, bars and restaurants and in the same period, the presence of foreigners in commerce is growing, both in terms of number of companies (+44 thousand) and in terms of employees (+107 thousand) and Italian activities and employees decrease (respectively -138 thousand and -148 thousand). These are the data from the Confcommercio Research Office with the analysis «Business demography in Italian cities». In medium-large cities the desertification alarm goes off with the reduction of commercial activities and the growth of the tourist offer are more pronounced in the historic centers than in the rest of the municipality, with the South characterized by a greater commercial vivacity than the Centre-North. The commercial fabric in historic centers is also changing with fewer and fewer traditional goods stores (books and toys -31.5%, furniture and hardware -30.5%, clothing -21.8%) and more and more services and technology (pharmacies +12.6%, computers and telephony +10.8%), accommodation (+43.3%) and catering (+4%). The risk of commercial desertification of cities is growing where, in the last 10 years, the commercial density has dropped from 9 to 7.3 shops per thousand inhabitants (a drop of almost 20%). To avoid the more serious effects of this phenomenon, for proximity trade there is no other way than to focus on efficiency and productivity also through greater innovation and a redefinition of the offer. And omnichannel remains fundamental, i.e. the use of the online channel as well, which has experienced exponential growth in recent years, with sales going from 16.6 billion in 2015 to 48.1 billion in 2022.
