Italian seaside tourism has always been, and remains even in the post-Covid period, the tourist segment that weighs most on the national market. Italy is known for its cities of art and its priceless artistic heritage. However, it is on the beaches that most tourists flock in high season.
Analyzing all Italian seaside tourism as if it were a homogeneous whole is a common and recurring mistake: due to the geographical characteristics, the offer and the identities of the places, our destinations of the sea are profoundly different from each other, a difference that affects the work of tourism workers every day.
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It's easy to say sea!
From the north to the south of the peninsula the coasts follow one another uninterruptedly, forming a puzzle (not exactly clearly defined) of mete tourists of all types. Speaking in terms of tourism economics, around sixty different beach products can be identified, each with its history, its natural characteristics and its market structure. No two are the same: some have a tourist history that began at the end of the XNUMXth century, like Versilia, others have been "discovered" recently, like Salento; some live almost exclusively for the Italian market and family tourism; others are strongly linked to foreign markets and only see couples arrive. A mix of many different variables (which also include the way of experiencing the holiday) which makes the market of each seaside destination different from the others.
Veneta and Sicily compared!
The Venetian Riviera and the Northern Coast of Sicilia are the destinations most famous seaside resorts in these two very distant Italian regions. Jesolo e San Vito lo Capo they represent two tourism products that are completely different from each other, differences that also influence their future prospects.
To highlight these differences, data from the Zucchetti Travel Data Lake, which represent the travel intentions of tourists and therefore the pressure of demand on the territories.
The data, collected in real-time, reflects the overnight stay searches made from 1 May to 31 July for stays in August-September 2022.
The first big difference between the two destinations is that we are talking about totally different volumes: searches for overnight stays for the Venetian Riviera are approximately 4 times higher than those for the Sicilia. The reasons that benefit the Venetian Riviera are to be found above all in the geographical position: it is very close not only to the large demand-generating centers of Northern Italy, but also to the national borders, which make the destination particularly accessible from neighboring countries. Accessibility, however, is precisely the weak point of Sicilia. This, together with historical factors, leads the Sicilian destination to have a foreign market that accounts for only 28%, compared to 68% in Veneto.
The relationship between Italian and foreign tourists is directly reflected in the homogeneity of demand: considering the check-in dates selected by tourists, we see that in both the demand is (naturally) negative with the arrival of autumn, but in the Riviera it is decidedly more uniform and remains strong until the first half of September. On the Sicilian coast, however, most of the demand is concentrated around the August holiday and drops immediately at the end of the month.
It must be said, however, that in Sicilia the demand is geographically better distributed: on the Venetian Riviera most of the demand is concentrated on Jesolo and San Michele al Tagliamento; while on the Northern Coast of the island the demand is spread across all the seaside resorts. Furthermore, in this period (1 May - 31 July) demand for the Sicilian Coast grew by +3,2%; compared to +2,1% in Veneto.
Finally, looking at the research clusters, we see that for both the prevalent market segment is that of couples, but for the Venetian Riviera family tourism has a more important weight. In particular, Palermo restaurants., Geraci and Favignana are the mete Sicilian women with high demand for couples; while Cavallino-Treporti and San Michele al Tagliamento are the mete most popular with families.
Posted in Destinations, Digital Travel
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