jubilee 2025 rome and milan olympics cortina tourism revenue overbooking

In Italy in 2023, 852 million tourist presences were recorded, 41% of which were represented by millennials (28-42 years old) who confirmed themselves as the main component of demand. Attendance mainly focused on cities of art and culture (40.4%), seaside (26.6%) and mountains (16.6%).

It appears from the Chambers of Commerce’s observatory on the tourism economy, whose data were presented today on the occasion of the third National Tourism Day in Rome, which also measured the evolution of the main travel motivations in the period 2012-2023: the growth trend sees culture confirming itself in first place for the second year, food and wine moving from 11th to fifth place and events, moving from 19th to 12th place, now capable of attracting 6.5% of tourist flows, in particular in the high spending target.

It is therefore no coincidence that the forecasts for next year’s Jubilee and for the subsequent 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics fully confirm this trend.

Jubilee and Olympics, what prospects

For the Jubilee, 35 million tourist arrivals are expected which will generate 105 million presences, with an expected doubling of flows for a tourist expenditure of 16.7 billion euros, assets at +81%. For the Olympics, 513 thousand arrivals are expected, +34% compared to the same period in 2023, for 1.8 million presences and tourist spending of 281 million euros, equal to +36%.

Risk of overbooking

According to Isnar estimates (based on Istat, Location Intelligence and Airdna data) an overbooking risk emerges for both events: very high for the Jubilee, considering the 400 thousand beds of the current accommodation capacity which already today present an average annual occupancy rate by 66%; probable for Milan-Cortina, considering the 250 thousand beds available today, with an average occupancy rate in the period of 63%, partially mitigated by the fact that the greater presences will be distributed over a larger territory.

There is a shortage of workers

“Our forecasts show in both cases a strong risk of overbooking, with accommodation capacity probably insufficient to cope with the large number of tourists expected – commented Andrea Prete, president of Unioncamere. – A factor of weakness for our businesses is also linked to the availability of personnel to be placed in the company. Of the almost 1 million and 146 thousand personnel hired in 2023, 47.7% were difficult to find, in 31.7% of cases due to lack of candidates. Tourism is one of those sectors in which the difficulty in finding candidates has become almost structural, considering that the share of difficulty in finding candidates in 2019 was 24.6%, therefore lower than the average 26.4%”.

“In the next two years, the eyes of the whole world will be on our country. We have an extraordinary opportunity to encourage the development of our tourism supply chains by focusing on the optimization of solutions, the quality of the offer, sustainability, digitalisation and on the maturation of skills – added the president of Isnart, Loretta Credaro.

Strength points…

The Capital retains its strong point as an extraordinary overall cultural attractor (95%) and for international tourism. The integrated destination Milan-Cortina, together with the municipalities of Anterselva, Assago, Bormio, Livigno, Predazzo, Rho, Tesero and Verona (the other venues of these widespread Games ed), also expresses extremely high levels of overall attractiveness (95%), with high levels of appreciation relating to the protection and valorisation of cultural assets and activities.

…and the critical issues

To help address these two unique and extraordinary moments of national and international tourist demand, Isnart, through its data for destination platform “Stendhal”, has developed two distinct sentiment analyzes on Rome and Milan, based on the perceptions of tourists who spent a holiday period in the two cities: how they perceived the services used, what type of experience they had and what was the overall perception of their trip. In particular, the differentials between positive and negative perceptions seem to indicate that among the intervention priorities for both destinations are those linked to pollution, safety, quality of information and the relationship between cost and quality of services.

In this context, according to Isnart calculations based on Infocamere data, the contribution of the tourism industry to the economy and employment is confirmed as fundamental. An indicator of this is the trend in the number of businesses active in tourism compared to the rest of the economy, which shows an extraordinary resilience of the former, which grew in the 2012/2023 period by 11.7%, while the latter decreased by 4%. 2%.

Strategic tourism supply chain

Hospitality is therefore confirmed as a strategic and vital supply chain for the country system, having demonstrated a notable ability to react to the shock of the pandemic. A sector that has also played a significant role in social stability, supporting the growth of female employment (+1.8% of companies led by women in 2023) and that of foreign-owned companies (+62.4% of companies opened by foreigners), groups that are traditionally more disadvantaged in accessing the job market.