Tourism: fewer and fewer Italians who can afford a holiday
(Teleborsa) – Bathing establishments that cost 500-600 euros a day, a week in Santa Margherita Ligure for a family of four can cost more than 7 thousand euros. A cup of ice cream a stone’s throw from the Ponte Vecchio in Florence can cost even twelve euros.
The Italian summer of this 2023 seems to be very salty for anyone hoping to enjoy a few days off along the Peninsula. In this scenario, alongside the 35 million Italians who will leave this summer – reveals a survey by Federalberghi and ACS Marketing Solutions on summer 2023 – there is 41% who will not take their holidays or will postpone them to other times of the year, mainly for economic reasons.
The preferred destination is Italy, where 90% of travelers will remain, followed by Greece, Spain and Croatia, growing compared to the trend of previous years. However, Italians who go on holiday will pay attention to expenses, starting with travel bookings well in advance to save money.
“Unfortunately, Italy has become an expensive country to go on holiday to. 41% of Italians will not go on holiday in August and will not go because they cannot afford it. This is because – he explains Vincenzo Rienzi, Codacons lawyer – between inflation, energy costs that he had to bear all winter, and rising prices for the summer, in the wallet one no longer finds that little treasure that all Italians saved up to be able to go on holiday in August ”.
So how to save money on travel and holidays? “First of all, you can rely on a tourist office or a tourist agency that can give us a hand. Alternatively, we can go to search engines and enter search parameters not linked so much to the destination but to the price ranges that we can afford, entering a rate that is for our pockets and being satisfied, perhaps, with making one or more stopovers to reach a specific destination or leaving everything to chance by choosing the destinations suggested by the search engine in order to spend a little less”.
Between causes of the soaring of the pieces according to Rienzi, there is “certainly the speculative component concerning the price increases that everyone is talking about these days”. The fault, therefore – he underlines – is not “100% of the traders”. “We must remember – explains Rienzi – that even the shopkeepers, hoteliers, restaurateurs and bartenders come from a very very complicated historical period: on the one hand, we know that we suffered enormous economic losses in 2020 due to Covid and many companies went bankrupt. But – he adds – also the war in Ukraine has caused bills to rise exponentially and this is what has then determined for the most part increases in the cost of our holidays today”.
A crisis scenario in which, however, there are also those who speculate. “’There are, then – warns Rienzi – those who speculate on these difficulties, on the citizens and unjustifiably increase prices. Our switchboards are constantly targeted by reports of people who are faced with scams and scams. This is why I always ask those who find themselves in these difficult situations to report it “.