Versione Italiana – Translation by Paul Rosenberg
There is a lot of talk around Europe about overtourism. Many of the great art cities are afflicted by it. Some – for example Amsterdam and Barcelona – have launched serious policies to limit the supply of tourist accommodations in recent years, having so under the pressure of residents who have grown tired of seeing their quality of life worsen due to an urban economy increasingly bent on the mass tourism industry.
In Italy the situation is nothing short of schizophrenic: on the one hand, the inhabitants of the main cities of art are clamoring for serious regulation of the flows of tourists; on the other hand, government policies only support and encourage the growth of the national tourism sector.
How should we read this schizophrenia? A comparison/clash between city communities that want to protect their local interests in the face of a more general desire aimed at supporting the growth of the national economy?
Looking at the data recently published by the government (source: Ministry of Tourism), the second trend seems to prevail: 13% of national production (GDP), or 255 billion euros, originates from the tourism sector; 11% of the workforce – with 2.7 million employees – employed in the sector; a balance of payments that provides an important contribution of currency produced by tourists from abroad (in 2023 the positive balance was twenty billion euros, equal to one percent of GDP).
For all these quantitative reasons, tourism is considered a driving sector of the Italian economy.
However, it is the future dynamic that contains the greatest political weight: the forecasts for 2024 are so good as to make not only the trade associations but the government itself euphoric.
Tourist numbers for the current year are estimated to be 460 million visitors, compared to 451 million in 2023: growth of 2% on an annual basis.
In 2023, arrivals were 134 million (of which 52.4 percent were from abroad), with an average stay per tourist of 3.36 days.
Veneto is confirmed as the leading Italian tourist region, with 21 million arrivals and 72 million presences in 2023, i.e. 15.6% of the national total. The conservative forecast for 2024 is growth of 8.4 percent. “Tourism drives the Venetian locomotive” – declares Luca Zaia.
The consensus seems unanimous: “tourism provides the push for growth” – as Confindustria Veneto sees it.
This is why operators in the sector don’t hesitate to ask for greater public investments and more explicit policies supporting the industry.
In the context of global competition, the same areas increasingly need a local economy, and tourism is the most current and adequate source. We therefore require a national protection plan for the sector which clarifies the necessary interventions that the territories must make in terms of services, mobility and safety, to welcome the masses and generate wealth for the territories. (Assoturismo hearing document on the Strategic Tourism Plan 2023-27, Chamber of Deputies, May 2023)
Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that in Italy the informal economy is worth at least two hundred billion euros. Considering the very characteristics of mass tourism and in particular of informal accommodation facilities, we can estimate that at least twenty percent of this “under-the-table” economy derives from this sector. All the official numbers reported above should therefore be proportionally increased.
If things are going so well for the tourism sector and for the Italian economy, then why are loud complaints resounding from all over? On the basis of historical experience, more than a few people could argue as follows: every economic development implies social contradictions, and these bring with them minorities who try to oppose change, but they are minorities, and sooner or later…
In truth, the state of things is more complex than that, and as a country we certainly have a great need for analysis, research and debate. We’ll try here to introduce some elements that are perhaps worth reflecting upon.
1 First consideration. Faced with the structural decline of national manufacturing and the lack of policies to support and relaunch the secondary sector, the choice appears almost obligatory: try to compensate for the loss of industrial production in the economy with similar growth in the services sector or risk the collapse of our economic structure. In colorful journalistic language we could even say: having abandoned the industrial warehouses of the Venetian countryside to themselves (abandoned, in the literal sense of the term), all we have to do is let a mushroom farm of bed & breakfasts and tourist rentals proliferate inside and outside the inhabited centers!
2 Second consideration. Are we looking at lasting growth which would therefore justify a serious industrial policy for the tourism sector, or is it just a cyclical phenomenon? The answer is complex: there is no doubt that mass tourism is an integral part of globalization processes, but the equally marked uncertainty inherent to tourism must be emphasized (wars, terrorism, pandemics, natural phenomena, etc. can lead to its collapse within a few days), and the potential obsolescence of mass tourism is also important in the medium term. The greatest risk is to irreversibly modify the physical and economic structure of our main tourist attractions (in particular the cities of art) and then suddenly find ourselves faced with a sudden drop in the demand for which this offering was designed.
3 Third consideration. Who are and will be the real beneficiaries of growth in tourism? All analyses agree on this: real estate income is king, with a very significant correlated effect represented by the loss of purchasing power of all recipients of income from work who live and work in areas with an explicit tourist vocation. The political choice in support of intensive exploitation of the so-called “tourist mines” is clearly represented by those who own rentals (small and large). The “mining” style exploitation of our natural, landscape, historical and cultural heritage thus ends up penalizing an important part of the population and significantly increasing income inequalities. This is associated with well-known phenomena: the expulsion of inhabitants from historic centers, the proliferation of low-paid and low-skilled work, the disappearance of traditional professions and local shops, etc.
4 Fourth consideration. The “extractive” nature of tourism (unhappily defined by some politicians as “Italian oil”) makes the question of the sustainability of this type of economy explicit. Mass tourism and the acceleration of the number of visitors are transforming Italy’s territorial and cultural heritage into a resource to be consumed with few qualms. It should be noted that no cost/benefit analysis is currently made available by the Ministry of Tourism or public agencies connected to it; this means that, beyond the technicalities, it is impossible to evaluate the size and effects of the external economic, social, environmental and cultural costs and imbalances produced by tourism development. It is therefore not just a question of complaints and protests from citizens who reside in cities of art, but of providing an objective assessment of the changes taking place in the quality of life in tourist sites, both for those who live there and for those who work there. The crucial issue of evaluating the tourist carrying capacity of our cities therefore remains unresolved.
5 Fifth consideration. The last aspect we highlight has to do with the difficult and complex relationship between Local and Global. Tourism, if not governed, risks undermining the very foundations of a territory/city’s relationship with the outside world. By fraying social relationships, downplaying environmental and cultural values and destroying historical communities, an extremely dangerous phenomenon of expulsion and/or closure is produced. Preserving the open character of our historic cities and the right of all residents to mobility, maintaining a positive relationship of exchange between local and global, valuing debate, diversity and synergies between the inside and outside, constitutes a precious and inalienable heritage. Here lies the fundamental challenge of preserving memory, the vision for the future and biodiversity, not only of individual territories/cities but of the country as a whole.
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