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The tourism industry is preparing for the start of the season with the reopening of seasonal activities in view of the start of tourist flows from abroad. There are millions of tourists arriving to discover or rediscover the Peninsula. To welcome and serve them, tourism companies are looking for around 246 thousand workers and the first recruiting campaign between February and April expects the catering sector to hire more than 172 thousand workers with a +13% compared to last year. With the beautiful season upon us and the arrival of holidays and long weekends which mainly affect the beginning of spring, tourism takes second place among the most active sectors in the search for personnel. This is what the study center of Fipe-Confcommercio, the Italian Federation of Public Businesses, reveals on the basis of Unioncamere-Excelsior data according to which expectations on attendance in the month of April 2024 are positive and should at least confirm the numbers of 2023, when they reached 28 million .
Already in February the sector searched for around 40 thousand positions and waiters confirmed themselves in first place with over 65,000 profiles in the quarter. This is followed by chefs with almost 42 thousand expected hires and bartenders with over 23,900 positions to fill. Specifically, in 56.7% of cases we are looking for staff who already have specific experience in the sector, demonstrating that professionalism is favoured, with a preference for the age group between 25 and 44 years. Given these trends, just under one company in two (49.2%) still complains of difficulties in finding staff, mainly due to the small number of candidates. A dynamic which, however, appears to be contracting, albeit slightly, when compared to that of 2023, when the share of companies complaining of difficulties in finding staff was 52%.
The prospects for the summer
As regards summer 2024, the forecasts are positive. According to the forecast models, it emerges that in the period between May and September 2024, the employment already acquired is 21.6% for the coastal areas, 34.2% on the lake, 25% in the mountains and 18.8% in the city . In all cases, compared to the same observation point in 2023, there is an increase between 0.4% and 2.5% in the employment acquired, demonstrating the fact that the culture of advance booking for do not run into higher accommodation costs. These are the data, processed by management software installed on over 25 thousand hotels, presented during the first edition of the Hôtellerie Forum held at Palariccione in the presence of hundreds of entrepreneurs in the sector. The event is organized by the AlbergatorePro agency and Zucchetti, Italian leader in information technology, in collaboration with Federalberghi, HBenchmark and Nexi. «Booking in advance does not only have a positive impact on the tourist’s pockets – comments Gian Marco Montanari, managing director of AlbergatorePro – but also and above all on the quality of the service that will be provided to him, given that the operators in the sector thus have the opportunity to organize the season to time, also in terms of finding an adequate numerically and professionally qualified workforce”.