The monitoring of the Authority on the winter season 2020/2021 in Valle d’Aosta highlights a collapse of the companies that pay quotas, especially among restaurants
The 2020/2021 winter tourist season was disastrous for the Aosta Valley. Due to the restrictions due to the pandemic and the wave of infections, the season has never actually started and the many activities in the area that live off winter tourism have suffered the consequences.
Many statistics have been read in recent months. Now a further indication on the exact extent of the economic damage suffered by the sector comes from the bilateral tourism body of the Aosta Valley which has completed a monitoring of the labor market and the economic and employment situation in the tourism sector. The photography focuses on companies that, having employees, pay shares to the organization.
From the 2019/2020 season and to the 2020/2021 season, the number of companies has decreased by 35 percentage points: they were 1,061 and dropped to 687. As many as 448 businesses have stopped paying the dues and only 74 have started or resumed paying them. The restaurant sector is the most affected (-41%) followed by hotel activities (-27%) and bars (-22%).
Inevitably, this situation had an impact on employment. The bilateral regional tourism body notes the loss of three quarters of jobs in the 2020/2021 winter season. In fact, the monitoring reports an average number of employees which fell by an average of 75%, going from 3892 in the winter of 2019/2020 to 965, of which just 357 employed in hospitality businesses. Looking at the different sectors, public businesses and travel agencies have reduced staff by 60% and accommodation facilities by 37%.
The geographical distribution of the collapse of employees and companies clearly respects the notoriety of winter tourist destinations: the more the resort was popular in the pre-Covid period, the more evident the impact of the pandemic and restrictions is. The area that refers to the Matterhorn is the one that has suffered the greatest repercussions: employees almost decimated (173 against 1115 in the previous season) and companies collapsed (139 from 231). Also in Valdigne the effects are important: the employees have gone from 960 to 162 and the companies that pay quotas from 183 to 110. Only in the Aosta and Monte Emilius area has the number of companies substantially held (from 276 to 216), but with a halving of jobs (from 634 to 311).
Elena Giovinazzo
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