Tourists choose Italy: rapidly growing search trends

Tourist searches for Italy have continued to increase over the past month. Puglia, Sardinia and Sicily did well.
Cefalù, Sicily - Photo by Siggy Nowak

During the last few weeks the growth trend has stabilized, confirming the strong interest of tourists in Italy , restart of the travel sector: this is what emerges from Destination Travel Report by Lybra, which periodically analyzes search data flights planes from the first international metasearch of flights.

Positive growth rate for weeks

During the period of time from 15 May to 13 June, searches for Italy continued to increase, consolidating the change of direction that began in April: in the first months of 2021, in fact, the data showed a stalemate situation, a blockage of market which lasted for at least four months. Only with the Easter holidays and the easing of restrictions did travelers start looking again flights to reach the Bel Paese and today we can say that the positive trend has stabilized.

Il growth rate has been positive for ten weeks now and at the moment Italy receives an average of 507 thousand searches per day. During the last thirty days, approximately 15,2 million searches were carried out at an average daily growth rate of 2,3% and the country remains the third most searched destination in the world, after Spain (22,7 million) e United States (18,8 million).

Flight searches for Italy from 2021 January XNUMX

Users are 58,2% foreign with 8,8 million searches, while the domestic market represents the remaining 41,8% (6,3 million searches). Among the foreign markets, the most active are the German and Spanish ones, both with 1,3 million searches and in the last thirty days they have grown at a higher than average daily rate, of 3,6% and 3,8% respectively . Followed by the French (871 thousand searches), the British (667 thousand) and the Greeks (455 thousand).
Each nationality has its own preferences regarding arrival dates, conditioned not only by cultural factors but also by different travel arrangements: Italy has recently withdrawn the quarantine obligation for those arriving from abroad (with some exceptions) but for some source markets, such as UK and United States, it is still strongly discouraged to travel to Italy for non-essential reasons.

What tourists are looking for

The Germans, for example, search flights with an average booking window of 39 days and are strongly interested in the month of June: considering the four summer months, 41% of searches are for arrivals in June, 34% for July, 17% for August and 7% for September. The Spaniards, on the other hand, have an average booking window of 44 days and have no particular preferences in the months of arrival: September, however, remains an unpopular month (7%).

Finally, Italian tourists tend to behave more cautiously: the data clearly shows a tendency towards last minute shopping, with a very strong interest in weekends in June which drops significantly from the month of July. There is some increase only in the first weeks of August, but for the rest of the month the interest in traveling is very low, as is the case for September.

Sicily, Sardinia and Puglia are the most requested

Le destinations that are receiving the most searches from Italians are mainly the islands: in first place is Catania with 737 thousand searches, followed by Palermo (661 thousand), Olbia (481 thousand) and Cagliari (392 thousand). Strong requests also for Puglia: 364 thousand searches for Bari and 299 thousand for Brindisi.

Foreigners prefer big cities

Foreigners, on the other hand, prefer the big Italian cities and are looking above all Rome (1,9 million searches) Milan (1,5 million), Napoli (686 thousand), Venice (676 thousand) and Bologna (357 thousand), but they are also very interested in Palermo (497 thousand), Catania (486 thousand), Bari (461 thousand) and Cagliari (327 thousand).

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