Inbound tourism in Italian regions:
performance and potentialities
by Giovanni Giuseppe Ortolani, Andrea Alivernini and Luca Buldorini
2004
v. 1.0
INBOUND TOURISM IN ITALIAN REGIONS: PERFORMANCE AND POTENTIALITIES
by Giovanni Giuseppe Ortolani, Andrea Alivernini and Luca Buldorini *
Abstract
Tourism is one of the traditionally 'strong' sectors of Italy’s economy. Nevertheless, the position in the ‘lifecycle’ of the various destinations, considered as tourism products offered to visitors, is significantly
differentiated among regions. Some regions appear to be touristically ‘mature’, whereas others seem to be at
earlier stages of tourism development. The study identifies the geographical areas with the highest growth
potential, i.e. the regions that in principle should be focused on by policy-makers. At the same time, the
research provides hints on the potential development that an optimal exploitation of tourist resources could
generate, taking into account the constraint of the availability of local human resources.
The study makes use of data produced by UIC and national statistical office (ISTAT). In the paper, three
main methodological tools are applied. The estimation procedure to make up for the lack of official statistics
on domestic tourism expenditure can be considered an original contribution. Whereas, the methodologies to
assess the regional tourist ‘attractiveness’ and to calculate the impact of internal tourism expenditure in terms
of value added and employment are largely derived from previous studies of TCI (Touring Club Italiano) and
CISET (Centro Internazionale di Studi e Ricerche sull'Economia Turistica).
* Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi, Statistics Department
The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not involve the responsibility of the Ufficio
Italiano dei Cambi.
2
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 4
2. Estimation of Italy's internal tourism expenditure ........................................................................ 6
3. Main features of Italy's internal tourism expenditure patterns .................................................... 10
4. Tourism attractiveness of Italian regions .................................................................................... 14
5. Tourism and regional development ............................................................................................. 19
6. Concluding remarks .................................................................................................................... 21
7. References ................................................................................................................................... 23
3
1. Introduction1
Traditionally, international travel plays a remarkable role in balance of payments (b.o.p.) statistics, as the
associated expenditure represents an important component of the current account balance (in the Travel item,
part of Services) of an economy. For this reason, special attention has been constantly devoted, in the b.o.p.
domain, in measuring travellers'2 expenditure. Moreover, in tourism statistics there is a growing interest in
isolating and studying the economic impact of tourism activities, both international and domestic. This has
eventually led, in recent years, to the definition of a new set of statistics, the Tourism Satellite Account3
(TSA), which considers tourism activities as a specific and peculiar type of demand, generating a certain
level of consumption (expenditure)4 of goods and services supplied by a diversified range of economic
sectors. Thanks to the TSA, production, employment and income generation in the various sectors of the
economy can be analysed as directly or indirectly triggered by travellers.
This study attempts to combine the b.o.p. and tourism statistics concepts and sources in order to reach a
twofold objective:
1) to assess the potential tourist attractiveness of Italian regions and their present capability to exploit this
potential in order to 'capture' tourism expenditure and
2) to provide hints on the possible economic development that Italian regions could gain from the
improvement of the exploitation of their tourist attractiveness, taking into account the possible constraint
of the availability of local labour force.
The first objective requires the quantification of the present level of Italy's internal, i.e. both inbound and
domestic, tourism expenditure. Similarly to most countries, Italy's inbound tourism expenditure is quite
1
Although the overall responsibility for the paper is shared by the three authors, Giovanni Giuseppe Ortolani wrote
paragraphs 1 and 6, Andrea Alivernini wrote paragraph 3 and Luca Buldorini wrote paragraphs 2, 4 and 5. The authors
are especially grateful to Antonello Biagioli and Pietro Mascelloni, of UIC's Statistics Department for useful
discussions and comments at different stages of the research.
2
In this paper, following the definitions of the International Monetary Fund on balance of payments statistics
[International Monetary Fund (1993), Balance of Payments Manual - Fifth Edition, Washington DC - BPM5 in the
following], the 'statistical unit' considered is the traveller. It should be noted that the concept of traveller adopted here
broadly corresponds with the concept of visitor used in tourism statistics. In the following, the terms 'traveller' and
'visitor' are used as synonyms, both in the international and domestic tourism contexts.
3
The conceptual reference of the TSA was set in European Commission, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development, World Tourism Organization, United Nations (2001), Tourism Satellite Accounts: Recommended
Methodological Framework. Luxembourg - Paris - Madrid - New York. Guidelines for the implementation of TSA in
the European Union Member States can be found in Eurostat, European Implementation Manual on Tourism Satellite
Accounts, 2002, Luxembourg.
4
This paper uses consumption and expenditure as synonyms.
accurately covered by current official sources, whereas domestic expenditure is not5. Therefore, a substantial
part of the study concerns the development of an original methodology to estimate the approximate
magnitude of the expenditure originating from trips of residents within the Italian territory, broken down by
Italian destination region.
This study builds on a previous analysis carried out some years ago6, whose focus was the substantial
underdevelopment of inbound tourism in Italy's southern regions. To this end, a set of attractiveness
indicators was designed, on the basis of a comprehensive inventory of cultural, environmental and social
assets of each region. The potential increase of inbound tourism expenditure in the South of the country that
an 'ideal' exploitation of tourist resources could promote was subsequently estimated. Finally, the expansion
of inbound expenditure was translated, trough an input-output model, into the expected growth of valued
added and employment in those regions.
Differently from the earlier analysis, this study does not concentrate on southern Italy, as it considers all
regions. This enlargement of the scope of the investigation aims at assessing the level of tourist efficiency
and the general economic feasibility of its improvement in each local context, through a more open,
exploratory approach.
The present analysis is meant to prompt the discussion on the topics presented, rather than to provide
'conclusive' findings, as several weaknesses of the study have to be recognised. Among the most relevant we
point out three aspects. First, the approximation of the model adopted to estimate, because of the mentioned
lack of relevant official statistics, Italy's domestic tourism expenditure. Second, the substantial fuzziness of
the concept of tourism attractiveness of the regions and the difficulties for its quantification. Third, the
simplified modelling of the potential economic impact of an ideal tourism development. All these aspects
can be significantly improved through further efforts.
All data in the present study refer to the situation in the year 2002, i.e. the more recent year for which
complete official statistics on all relevant dimensions were available at the time the paper was written.
The paper is structured as follows. Paragraph 2 illustrates the methodology used to obtain an as much as
possible complete picture of total Italy's internal tourism expenditure, with details on the approach used to
the estimate the domestic part. Paragraph 3 contains a brief description of the main characteristics of the
country's internal tourism demands, analysing both the physical and monetary variables, broken down by the
most significant classification attributes (type of accommodation used and country of origin). Paragraph 4
introduces the concept of tourism attractiveness of a region and its operationalization. Paragraph 5 depicts
5
Non-official statistics on the regional distribution of Italy's domestic tourism expenditure are regularly jointly
elaborated by IRPET (Istituto Regionale per la Programmazione Economica della Toscana) and CISET; see Manente,
M., "Il turismo nell'economia italiana" in Becheri, E. et al. (2003), XII Rapporto sul turismo italiano, Firenze.
Nevertheless, this source does not provide the data details (type of accommodation , purpose of travel, visitors' country
of origin) needed for part of the analysis conducted in the present study.
6
See Touring Club Italiano - Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi (1998), Turismo estero al Sud: una occasione di sviluppo,
Roma and Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi (1998), The Geography of International Tourism Demand in Italy, Roma.
5
the ideal scenario of tourist and economic development for each region, taking into account the constraint of
the locally available human resources. Paragraph 6 reports the conclusive considerations.
2. Estimation of Italy's internal tourism expenditure
Despite the economic importance of the tourism sector, several difficulties hinder the possibility to derive a
fully comprehensive picture of visitors' expenditure in Italy from the currently available sources. In the first
place, the definition of the reference population, namely of the individuals to be concretely addressed when
trying to measure the phenomenon, poses major difficulties. People travel for many different reasons and,
depending on the purpose of their travelling, not all travellers are considered equally relevant. As an
example, tourism statistics do not consider "commuting trips" (individuals moving to reach their usual
working location) as part of tourism activity; this involves the need to identify such travellers within the
larger population of travellers, in order to exclude their expenses from tourism analysis. Also problematic is
the definition of the concept of "usual environment", which delimits the area beyond which an individual in
movement is considered a visitor. This concept is somewhat intrinsically vague, especially in relation to
domestic tourism, and, partly as a consequence of this, an accepted international standard defining it with
sufficient precision has not yet been developed.
In Italy there are two main sources addressing tourism from the demand side. The first is a survey on
international travellers (foreigners in Italy and Italians abroad) conducted by the Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi
(UIC), carried out at the Italian borders through face to face interviews7. Being the main purpose of the
survey the estimation of the Travel item of the balance of payments, expenditure is its target variable. The
survey definition of travellers refers to any individual resident8 in a given country moving to another country,
irrespective of the purpose of the trip and the length of the stay. Hence, any traveller physically crossing the
national borders is covered by the survey (i.e. travellers crossing the borders commuting to reach their usual
work location are also included). The expenditures measured in this survey are all those performed by the
traveller while visiting the foreign country, provided that they are carried out to acquire goods and services
for personal use.
For further details on the survey methodology see: Biagioli, A. (1997), “Sample Survey on Italian International
Tourism”, in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Third International Forum on Tourism
Statistics, Paris; Eurostat (2000), Technical Group Travel Report. Revision of the Collection Systems for the Travel item
of the Balance of Payments of EU Member States Following Stage Three of the EMU, Luxembourg; Mirto, A. P. and
Ortolani, G. G. (1998), Methodology for The Collection of Statistics on Tourist Movements at Land Frontiers, Seminar
“Frontier Statistics in European Countries” (World Tourism Organization), Madrid; Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi (1996),
Indagine campionaria sul turismo internazionale dell’Italia. Luglio. Agosto, Settembre 1995, Roma; World Tourism
Organisation (1999), Seminar on Frontier Statistics in European Countries (Surveys on Inbound & Outbound Tourism),
Madrid and UIC's web site at http://www.uic.it.
7
8
The concept of 'residence' of an individual is also defined in BPM5. It broadly identifies the country (economy) in
which that individual has his/her 'centre of economic interest'; in most cases, it is the country where the individual
normally lives.
6
The second source is a household telephone survey conducted by ISTAT9 on "Trips and vacations" ("Viaggi
e Vacanze") of Italians. This survey provides figures on the number of trips and the number of night stays of
Italians, but it does not provide data on expenditure. The scope of the ISTAT survey is more restricted than
that of the UIC survey, as the former only covers tourists (i.e. the visitors who spent at least one night outside
the usual environment). In addition, consistently with tourism statistics definitions, travellers commuting to
reach their usual work location are excluded.
In this study an attempt has been made to estimate the inbound and domestic expenditure in Italy, or total
internal tourism expenditure, disaggregated by region, merging the two sources described above. To this
end, a certain degree of approximation in the compliance to definitions was unavoidable, given the current
data availability. Travellers, in this note, are defined as those spending at least one night outside their usual
residence, therefore excluding all the so called same-day visitors or excursionists (those starting and ending
the trip in the same day), which, in principle should have been also included. The limitation of the population
of travellers to tourists might seem quite restrictive, as same-day visitors can sometimes generate an
important part of tourist expenditure. However, it should be also considered that excursionists, although very
numerous, are normally far less important in terms of per capita expenditure. According to the UIC data
(referring only to foreign travellers) in the border regions of Northern Italy the share of same-day travellers
on total travellers is 44%, but their expenditure represents only 7.5% of the total10. This suggests that the
impact of this exclusion should not substantially bias the results of this study.
It is also underlined that a concept of "consumption during the trip" is used here. Only goods and services
acquired by the traveller during the stay are considered11. Goods and services acquired at home are excluded,
even when the acquisition is clearly related to the trip (i.e. the suitcase bought before the journey). The
reason for the adoption of this approach comes from the fact that expenditure data are only derived from the
UIC survey, which strictly applies this concept, in line with b.o.p. rules.
The quantification of the expenditure of resident visitors within Italy's territory (domestic tourism
expenditure) poses serious problems due to the unavailability of official statistics directly addressing this
area. However, from the ISTAT survey on "Trips and vacations" it is possible to derive a comprehensive
assessment on the number of night stays that Italians spent outside their usual residence. Table 2.1 shows the
survey results on the year 2002, with figures broken down by destination region, type of accommodation
(hotel, rented dwelling, accommodation offered by friends or relatives, other) and purpose of travel
(personal, business).
9
ISTAT (2002), I viaggi in Italia e all'estero nel 2001, Roma; available at http://www.istat.it.
10
This percentage exclude the expenditure of same-day travellers for shopping reasons as this is a quite peculiar
phenomenon mainly due to Slovenian and Croatian residents shopping in the Friuli region.
11
Those goods and services are included irrespective of the fact that the are paid before, during or after the trip. For
example, aggregates presented in this paper include accommodation services both paid directly at the hotel and paid in
advance through a travel agency.
7
The quantity of nights spent outside the usual environment is certainly highly correlated with the level of
travellers' expenditure. Indeed, total expenditure can be defined as the product between the number of nights
and the average per night expenditure or average daily per capita expenditure. Information on the latter
quantity is at present not available in Italy's official statistics. In this study an attempt is made to estimate it,
with an acceptable approximation, using the results of the UIC survey on the expenditure of foreign
travellers.
In order to improve the comparability of average expenditure between Italian and foreign travellers, only
visitors from other euro area countries have been considered in the second group; this allowed, for example,
to exclude foreign tourists from certain countries (i.e. the US and Japan) that most likely are characterised by
an expenditure behaviour significantly different from that of Italians. Euro area travellers have been further
classified according to the region visited, the purpose of travel (personal, business) and the type of
accommodation used (hotel, other accommodation), since these three variables show a clear correlation with
the average expenditure per night.
Table 2.1 - Domestic tourism. Night stays. Thousands. 2002.(1)
Personal
Business
Of which
hotel
PIEMONTE
VALLE D'AOSTA
LIGURIA
LOMBARDIA
TRENTINO ALTO ADIGE
VENETO
FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA
EMILIA ROMAGNA
TOSCANA
UMBRIA
MARCHE
LAZIO
ABRUZZI
MOLISE
CAMPANIA
PUGLIA
BASILICATA
CALABRIA
SICILIA
SARDEGNA
ITALY
Of which
hotel
TOTAL
14,243
6,693
36,002
36,039
24,127
30,405
6,923
40,422
41,207
7,607
18,292
33,457
15,630
2,604
31,131
42,693
4,943
39,352
46,063
37,156
3,355
2,419
8,730
5,123
12,012
7,287
1,153
21,850
9,020
3,284
1,737
4,010
4,896
575
5,631
3,966
756
2,073
5,203
5,558
1,505
124
736
5,557
760
3,619
1,384
4,061
2,500
560
2,610
6,551
908
301
944
1,892
389
1,135
2,518
2,755
903
74
442
3,334
456
2,171
830
2,437
1,500
336
1,566
3,931
545
181
566
1,135
233
681
1,511
1,653
15,748
6,817
36,738
41,596
24,887
34,024
8,307
44,483
43,707
8,167
20,902
40,008
16,538
2,905
32,075
44,585
5,332
40,487
48,581
39,911
514,989
108,638
40,809
24,485
555,798
SOURCE: UIC ELABORATION ON ISTAT DATA
(1) The table shows the crossing of three variables: destination region, type of accommodation and purpose of travel. Istat provided regional data
broken down by type of accommodation and, separately, by purpose of travel, and national data jointly crossed by accommodation and purpose. In
order to cross the mentioned three variables, a national average share of the night stays of business travellers spent in hotels on total night stays in
hotels has been estimated (60%). This percentage has been applied to the night stays in hotels in each region, in order to estimate the hotel share for
the business segment. The nights spent in hotel by personal travellers have been calculated as the difference between total night stays in hotels and
night stays in hotels of business travellers previously estimated.
8
Despite the remarkable dimension of the sample (35,202 interviews), the crossing of these three variables
produced a few cells with a rather small sample dimension. For cells with less than 30 underlying interviews,
the sample values have been substituted by the global average. In order to improve the robustness of the
estimated averages, an outlier detection and correction phase has been subsequently performed. The results
of this elaboration are shown in Table 2.2.
The resulting average expenditure per night, although referred to foreign travellers, contains elements of
homogeneity that make it, in our opinion, a good proxy of the expenditure of the Italians travelling
domestically. It seems in fact reasonable that an inbound visitor from the euro area and a domestic visitor
that visit the same Italian region, in a similar type of accommodation and for similar purposes might have
spent, on average, a comparably similar amount of money per day. In practice, the number of nights spent
outside the usual environment by each category of Italian travellers (Table 2.1) has been multiplied by the
average expenditure of the corresponding category (Table 2.2), providing an estimation of the total domestic
expenditure of Italian travellers.
Table 2.2 - Inbound tourism. Average expenditure per night of euro area
travellers(1)(2). Euro. 2002.
Personal
Hotel
PIEMONTE
VALLE D'AOSTA
LIGURIA
LOMBARDIA
TRENTINO ALTO ADIGE
VENETO
FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA
EMILIA ROMAGNA
TOSCANA
UMBRIA
MARCHE
LAZIO
ABRUZZI
MOLISE
CAMPANIA
PUGLIA
BASILICATA
CALABRIA
SICILIA
SARDEGNA
ITALY
Business
Other
accommodation
Other
accommodation
Hotel
121
149
86
113
77
101
111
77
100
104
76
135
85
45
106
95
81
81
103
99
45
37
38
38
36
41
46
32
52
36
26
39
30
18
38
32
32
29
44
35
159
226
121
188
116
158
127
148
142
166
140
238
186
77
159
153
138
135
150
153
31
57
57
57
28
52
90
54
42
43
67
46
36
20
46
64
35
34
45
39
99
40
168
43
SOURCE: UIC
(1) Excluding same-day visitors.
(2) Grey cells indicate imputed values.
Data on non resident visitors' expenditure in Italy (inbound tourism expenditure) have been derived directly
from the UIC survey on international tourism. Differently from the concepts used by the UIC for b.o.p.
purposes, the definition of traveller considered in this paper is more restrictive, as all "same-day travellers"
have been excluded as well as commuting travellers. The latter have been identified on the basis of the
9
residence of the employer: individuals moving to the location of the employer have been considered as
commuting travellers12. As far as the expenditure is concerned, consistently with b.o.p. practices, only the
"consumption during the trip" is considered (see above).
Finally, combining domestic and inbound tourism expenditure, a comprehensive picture of total internal
tourism expenditure in Italian regions has been produced. Table 2.3 shows the results, with a split between
personal and business purposes. The subsequent paragraph provides a more detailed analysis of the
characteristics of Italy's internal tourism, as derived from the estimation procedure explained above.
Table 2.3 - Domestic, inbound and total (internal) tourism expenditure(1). Euro
millions. 2002.
Domestic expenditure
Personal Business
purpose purpose
PIEMONTE
VALLE D'AOSTA
LIGURIA
LOMBARDIA
TRENTINO ALTO ADIGE
VENETO
FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA
EMILIA ROMAGNA
TOSCANA
UMBRIA
MARCHE
LAZIO
ABRUZZI
MOLISE
CAMPANIA
PUGLIA
BASILICATA
CALABRIA
SICILIA
SARDEGNA
ITALY
892
522
1,799
1,757
1,352
1,678
393
2,276
2,572
496
568
1,684
731
63
1,566
1,613
197
1,241
2,348
1,650
25,397
163
20
70
754
61
417
155
449
255
65
288
1,057
115
16
108
223
38
108
273
296
4,931
Total
Inbound expenditure
Personal
purpose
Business
purpose
648
115
700
1,916
994
3,747
702
1,057
3,278
299
227
2,570
173
14
1,095
367
49
238
718
400
19,310
338
9
128
1,770
119
505
107
414
453
38
48
1,120
43
6
185
43
9
11
60
54
5,458
1,055
541
1,869
2,511
1,413
2,096
548
2,725
2,828
561
856
2,741
845
79
1,673
1,836
234
1,349
2,621
1,946
30,327
Total
986
125
828
3,686
1,113
4,252
809
1,471
3,731
337
275
3,690
215
20
1,280
410
58
249
778
455
24,768
Internal expenditure
Personal Business
purpose purpose
1,540
637
2,499
3,673
2,346
5,426
1,095
3,334
5,851
794
795
4,254
903
77
2,661
1,981
246
1,479
3,066
2,050
44,706
501
29
198
2,524
180
922
263
863
708
103
336
2,177
157
22
293
266
46
118
333
351
10,389
Total
2,041
666
2,697
6,197
2,526
6,348
1,358
4,196
6,559
898
1,131
6,431
1,061
99
2,953
2,246
292
1,597
3,399
2,401
55,095
SOURCE: UIC ELABORATION ON UIC AND ISTAT DATA
(1) Excluding same-day visitors.
3. Main features of Italy's internal tourism expenditure patterns
The estimation method previously described allowed to derive a data set on Italy's internal tourism, based on
UIC's survey results for the inbound side and on estimates - original contribute of this paper - on ISTAT data
for the domestic side. This paragraph analyses this data set in order to attempt to outline the main
characteristics of Italian regions' total tourism demand, both from the physical (number of night stays) and
monetary (expenditure) standpoint, highlighting its geographic variability. Italy's regional tourism data are
12
In this way, commuting travellers are distinguished from 'standard' business travellers, as the latter travel to a location
which is different from the location of the employer.
10
broken down by the main tourism classification variables, in order to shed light on features that could remain
hidden if only a global perspective was adopted.
In 2002, € 55,095 millions were spent by travellers, in trips consisting of about 887 millions of night stays.
The phenomenon is not uniformly distributed in Italian areas or region. As it can be seen in Table 3.1, the
Centre is the area with the highest total expenditure (15,018 € millions), whereas the South is at the top by
number of night stays (about 288 millions).
Table 3.1 - Domestic, inbound and total (internal) tourism expenditure (Euro
millions) and night stays (thousands) by Italian region visited. Excluding
same-day visitors. 2002.
DOMESTIC
INBOUND
TOTAL
expenditure
PIEMONTE
VALLE D'AOSTA
LIGURIA
LOMBARDIA
NORTH-WEST
TRENTINO ALTO ADIGE
VENETO
FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA
EMILIA ROMAGNA
NORTH-EAST
TOSCANA
UMBRIA
MARCHE
LAZIO
CENTRE
ABRUZZI
MOLISE
CAMPANIA
PUGLIA
BASILICATA
CALABRIA
SICILIA
SARDEGNA
SOUTH AND ISLES
ITALY
1,055
541
1,869
2,511
5,976
1,413
2,096
548
2,725
6,781
2,828
561
856
2,741
6,986
845
79
1,673
1,836
234
1,349
2,621
1,946
10,584
30,327
night stays
expenditure
15,748
6,817
36,738
41,596
100,899
24,887
34,024
8,307
44,483
111,701
43,707
8,167
20,902
40,008
112,784
16,538
2,905
32,075
44,585
5,332
40,487
48,581
39,911
230,414
555,798
986
125
828
3,686
5,625
1,113
4,252
809
1,471
7,646
3,731
337
275
3,690
8,032
215
20
1,280
410
58
249
778
455
3,464
24,768
night stays
14,883
1,605
12,950
39,302
68,740
18,956
56,820
12,113
23,178
111,067
46,597
5,495
5,918
36,671
94,680
4,486
586
15,718
9,808
909
6,088
10,809
9,065
57,469
331,956
expenditure
2,041
666
2,697
6,197
11,602
2,526
6,348
1,358
4,196
14,427
6,559
898
1,131
6,431
15,018
1,061
99
2,953
2,246
292
1,597
3,399
2,401
14,048
55,095
night stays
30,631
8,422
49,688
80,898
169,639
43,843
90,844
20,420
67,661
222,768
90,304
13,662
26,820
76,679
207,464
21,024
3,491
47,793
54,393
6,241
46,575
59,390
48,976
287,883
887,754
SOURCE: UIC ELABORATION ON UIC AND ISTAT DATA
These data reflect different behaviours as for the composition of the flows: domestic tourism is mainly
addressed to southern regions, while international tourism tends to be concentrated in the central and northeastern part of the country. Since international tourism is a segment richer than domestic tourism, southern
regions present a lower daily average expenditure. In the following an attempt is made to provide some
suggestions about the main factors that could describe the specificities of the various regions.
As regards the purpose of trip, Figure 3.1 shows that in Italy 91% of night stays is made by leisure tourists
and 9% by business tourists, whereas the composition of total expenditure in Italy shows a significantly
different concentration: only 81% is spent by tourists travelling for personal purposes and 19% by business
tourists.
11
The different composition between night stays and expenditure implies a different daily per-capita
expenditure for the two segments: as shown in Figure 3.2, the value for the whole country is 126 € for
business travellers and 56 € for personal purposes. This quite large difference seems to depend on the
relative importance of business tourism inside the regions.
Figure 3.1 - Internal tourism. Composition of night stays and expenditure in Italy, by
purpose of the trip. Excluding same-day visitors. 2002.
Personal
19%
Personal
9%
Business
81%
Business
91%
Night stays
Expenditure
SOURCE: UIC ELABORATION ON UIC AND ISTAT DATA
Figure 3.2 - Internal tourism. Daily per-capita expenditure (euro) by region and
purpose of the trip. Excluding same-day visitors. 2002.
180
160
personal
140
business
120
100
80
60
40
ITALY
SICILIA
SARDEGNA
CALABRIA
BASILICATA
PUGLIA
CAMPANIA
MOLISE
ABRUZZI
LAZIO
MARCHE
UMBRIA
TOSCANA
FRIULI V. GIULIA
EMILIA ROMAGNA
VENETO
TRENTINO A. ADIGE
LIGURIA
LOMBARDIA
PIEMONTE
0
VALLE D'AOSTA
20
SOURCE: UIC ELABORATION ON UIC AND ISTAT DATA
Actually, the difference is particularly high in Lombardia and Lazio, where business tourism represents
nearly 20% of the night stays while it is very limited in regions presenting a structure of tourism with
prevalence of personal purposes.
12
The purpose of the trip seems to be the classification attribute that better explains the differences among the
travellers' behaviours. In other words, a series of attributes is usually associated to each specific trip purpose
(e.g. business travellers prefer to stay in hotel, usually they go to particular regions and come from particular
countries, etc.).
Another important - but often associated to the purpose of the trip - source of variability for travellers'
behaviour in the Italian regions is the type of accommodation chosen. As it is evident in Table 3.2 below, the
higher is the share of travellers staying in hotels, the higher will be their average expenses. Non-hotel
hospitality is largely used (76% of the night stays), with peaks in the southern regions (Calabria 93%, Puglia
89%), while the north-eastern regions Emilia Romagna and Trentino Alto Adige present the lowest values
(respectively 45% and 50%). Molise presents the lowest daily expenditure (only 27 € per-capita); Valle
d'Aosta, with 79 €, is on the other side, especially because of quite high expenditure at hotels (152 €).
Table 3.2 - Internal tourism. Daily per-capita expenditure (euro) and night stays
(percentage on the total) by region and type of accommodation.
Excluding same-day visitors. 2002.
Daily per-capita expenditure
PIEMONTE
VALLE D'AOSTA
LIGURIA
LOMBARDIA
NORTH-WEST
TRENTINO ALTO ADIGE
VENETO
FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA
EMILIA ROMAGNA
NORTH-EAST
TOSCANA
UMBRIA
MARCHE
LAZIO
CENTRE
ABRUZZI
MOLISE
CAMPANIA
PUGLIA
BASILICATA
CALABRIA
SICILIA
SARDEGNA
SOUTH AND ISLES
ITALY
Hotel
Other
Global
129
152
88
142
121
78
114
118
84
90
106
110
106
186
131
95
53
111
108
94
94
113
111
106
107
44
38
39
39
40
35
41
50
34
39
52
36
29
39
42
30
18
38
33
32
29
44
35
35
38
67
79
51
60
59
57
62
66
61
61
65
68
41
68
62
51
27
52
41
44
33
54
49
46
55
Night stays
Hotel
27.0%
36.6%
25.0%
20.3%
24.2%
50.1%
27.8%
23.9%
54.6%
43.1%
24.1%
44.3%
15.8%
19.8%
22.5%
32.9%
26.0%
19.3%
11.4%
18.5%
6.8%
13.8%
18.1%
15.3%
24.0%
Other
73.0%
63.4%
75.0%
79.7%
75.8%
49.9%
72.2%
76.1%
45.4%
56.9%
75.9%
55.7%
84.2%
80.2%
77.5%
67.1%
74.0%
80.7%
88.6%
81.5%
93.2%
86.2%
81.9%
84.7%
76.0%
SOURCE: UIC ELABORATION ON UIC AND ISTAT DATA
Data are rather variable and indicate that the level of expenditure is strictly correlated with the
accommodation chosen. In this sub-analysis, the overnight stay in hotel is representative of a sort of "upperclass" tourism - often associated with business tourism - opposed to the tourism of the travellers staying in
alternative accommodation. As for the latter, the use of "second homes" for Italian travellers is particularly
important for most of the Italian regions. Travellers adopting this type of accommodation usually yield a
13
limited economic impact on the visited regions accompanied by a relevant (increasing) negative effect on
their environment, causing in some case problems of "tourism sustainability".
The country of origin of the travellers heavily influences their behavioural pattern. Several factors, such as
the socio-economic profile of travellers, the purpose of the trip and the distance from the Italian region
visited, seem to affect the length of the stay and the expenditure pattern. Table 3.3 below shows how
geographical factors affect the daily per-capita expenditure. The average daily per-capita expenditure is 75 €,
but there is a strong variability depending on the region visited and the country of residence of the traveller:
Centre regions present the highest daily per-capita expenditure (85 €), followed by North-West (82), NorthEast (69) and South and Isles (60). Again, the role of business tourism appears to be fundamental: the highest
share of business travellers is concentrated - as it was already mentioned - in Centre and North-West regions.
Looking at the tourists' country of origin, the Japanese are the top daily per-capita spenders (160 €), followed
by the travellers from the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom. On the opposite side, Germans,
Italians and Greeks showed the lowest level of expenditure - respectively 60, 59 and 37 euro. In general,
compared to international tourism, domestic tourism is characterised by a lower daily per capita expenditure.
Table 3.3 - Internal tourism. Daily per capita expenditure (euro) by destination area
and country of residence. Excluding same-day visitors. 2002.
North-West
ITALY
JAPAN
UNITED STATES
RUSSIA
UNITED KINGDOM
CROATIA
AUSTRIA
FRANCE
SWITZERLAND
SPAIN
THE NETHERLANDS
BELGIUM
GERMANY
GREECE
OTHER-EUROPEAN
OTHER-NON EUROPEAN
TOTAL
North-East
59
213
169
154
111
109
85
68
70
70
80
91
63
67
60
99
82
Centre
61
141
136
137
101
78
75
83
74
73
51
55
58
47
52
97
69
62
148
131
96
117
117
75
81
85
66
73
82
63
45
66
104
85
South And Isles
46
146
131
101
107
141
63
55
59
69
66
43
50
29
66
96
60
Total
59
163
139
119
110
90
74
73
71
69
66
65
60
37
60
101
75
SOURCE: UIC ELABORATION ON UIC AND ISTAT DATA
4. Tourism attractiveness of Italian regions
In paragraph 2 the total internal tourism expenditure in each Italian region has been determined. We will try
now to answer the question on whether the amount of this expenditure is adequate in relation to certain
'quality' aspects of the tourist supply, summarised by an indicator that is defined as attractiveness of the
region. In defining the concept of attractiveness, the presence of tourist infrastructure (i.e. hotels, airports,
14
highways, etc.) has been deliberately excluded, as we aim at defining a concept of pure tourist potentiality, in
order to highlight to which extent regions manage to exploit their tourist resources. In other words, making a
parallel with a commercial product, there can be qualities that are intrinsic to the product, while other
qualities, such as accessibility and name (standing, reputation, etc.), are the effect of promotion activities and
other investments aiming at the product valorisation. The objective of this analysis is to try to 'quantify' the
former type of qualities, i.e. the intrinsic ones, for each Italian region.
Is it possible to assess the attractiveness of a region in the terms described above? There is certainly a strong
component of subjectivity in evaluating how attractive a destination is for a traveller. In addition, previous
paragraphs have shown that people travel for different purposes (i.e. vacation or business), each
characterised by different attracting factors.
The Touring Club Italiano (TCI), in the mentioned study in which the approach was first introduced 13, has
proposed three types of attractiveness indicators for the Italian regions which can be very helpful for the
purposes of this study. The first indicator, the cultural attractiveness indicator, is based on an inventory of
cultural and art assets (such as churches, historical buildings, castles, museums, archaeological sites, etc.),
weighted by their importance. The second, the environmental attractiveness indicator, is based on a number
of indices which aim at the overall evaluation of the quality of the environment, such as percentage of parks
and protected areas, presence of natural assets (beaches, lakes, mountains, etc.), quality of the water,
pollution, opinion surveys, weighted by the dimensions of the region. The third indicator, the social
attractiveness indicator, measures the intensity of the offer of social activities and events such as religious
celebrations, historical representations, gastronomic fairs, etc.
The three indicators address three characteristics of the tourism supply (culture, nature and society) which
might be seen as strong "triggers" of travellers expenditure. Indeed, according to the 2002 answers to the
question on the main purpose of the trip in the UIC survey, about 65% of the expenditure of foreign
travellers in Italy can be connected with one of those three aspects (33% for cultural, 27% for environmental
and 5% for social reasons).
Still according to the UIC survey, the rest of the expenditure is connected with trips for visits to friends and
relatives (15%) and with business purposes (20%). For these types of travellers it has been assumed that two
simple indexes can be considered as attractiveness indicator. For visits to friends and relatives the index
chosen has been the visited regions' total population, following the neutral assumption that these trips could
be approximately proportional to the number of inhabitants. For business trips, the GDP in services of the
region is the chosen indicator, under the assumption that the level of economic activity in services is the
main trigger in this case. The underlying idea is that the dimension of the business travel market is positively
13
Touring Club Italiano - Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi (1998) and Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi (1998).
15
correlated with the degree of development of the destination (and also origin) economies, and, consequently,
with the size of the services sector14.
The hypothesis formulated in this work is that each of the five attractiveness indicator signals the potentiality
of each region to capture tourism in each particular market segment. This allows reaching the final objective
of obtaining an overall attractiveness indicator, built as the weighted average of the five indicators. The
weights used are the shares of each type of tourism in total inbound expenditure, derived from the UIC
survey (Table 4.1). The indicators value are shown in Table 4.2.
Table 4.1 - Weights used to aggregate the attractiveness indicators. Percentages.
Personal purposes
Business
Holidays
Visits to relatives
Culture
Nature
Society
and friends
33%
27%
5%
16%
purposes
19%
SOURCE: UIC
Table 4.2 - Attractiveness indicator by Italian region. Index (Italy = 1000).
Overall
indicator
PIEMONTE
VALLE D'AOSTA
LIGURIA
LOMBARDIA
TRENTINO ALTO ADIGE
VENETO
FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA
EMILIA ROMAGNA
TOSCANA
UMBRIA
MARCHE
LAZIO
ABRUZZI
MOLISE
CAMPANIA
PUGLIA
BASILICATA
CALABRIA
SICILIA
SARDEGNA
56
14
42
99
26
74
29
67
82
47
40
103
28
11
75
55
17
30
70
35
TCI
culture
20
24
62
49
12
78
31
54
107
91
54
151
26
13
97
46
12
13
56
7
TCI
nature(1)
80
12
17
77
51
58
26
71
75
29
33
50
41
16
44
64
36
54
85
83
TCI
society
27
32
117
37
33
75
74
71
85
86
85
53
23
21
37
43
11
27
43
21
Population
74
2
27
159
17
80
21
70
61
15
26
90
22
6
100
70
10
35
87
29
GDP
services
78
3
33
184
23
83
22
80
67
14
24
122
18
5
73
48
8
25
66
23
SOURCE: UIC ELABORATION ON TOURING CLUB ITALIANO DATA
(1) The nature indicator originally developed by TCI was a relative index, which did not take into account the dimension of the
region. For this reason it has been scaled using the dimension (in km2) of the region.
14
See Littlejohn, D. (2001), "Business Travel Markets: New Paradigms, New Information Needs?" in Lennon, J. John
ed., Tourism Statistics. International Perspectives and Current Issues, London.
16
The estimated internal tourism expenditure, in 2002 and the attractiveness indicator can now be put in
relation, in order to assess the degree of exploitation of the tourism potential of each region. The latter
variable is calculated as a ratio between the first two variables. Consequently, it expresses the amount of
internal tourism expenditure 'stimulated' by each point of attractiveness. Table 4.2 shows the levels of the
three variables in each region.
The regions with a higher expenditure per point are those in which the tourist product is well valorised, while
regions with a low value do not exploit it in an optimal way. The region with the best capability of
valorisation is Trentino Alto Adige with euro 95.4 millions for each attractiveness point, but also Veneto
(86.1) and Toscana (79.8) show a good exploitation level.
Table 4.2 - Exploitation of tourist potential. Euro millions, index, euro millions per
point. 2003.
Internal tourism
expenditure(1)
PIEMONTE
VALLE D'AOSTA
LIGURIA
LOMBARDIA
TRENTINO ALTO ADIGE
VENETO
FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA
EMILIA ROMAGNA
TOSCANA
UMBRIA
MARCHE
LAZIO
ABRUZZI
MOLISE
CAMPANIA
PUGLIA
BASILICATA
CALABRIA
SICILIA
SARDEGNA
ITALY
Attractiveness
Degree of exploitation
2,041
666
2,697
6,197
2,526
6,348
1,358
4,196
6,559
898
1,131
6,431
1,061
99
2,953
2,246
292
1,597
3,399
2,401
56
14
42
99
26
74
29
67
82
47
40
103
28
11
75
55
17
30
70
35
36.5
49.0
64.9
62.5
95.4
86.1
47.5
62.7
79.8
19.0
28.6
62.2
38.2
8.8
39.2
40.9
16.8
52.4
48.6
69.2
55,095
1,000
55.1
SOURCE: UIC ELABORATION ON TOURING CLUB ITALIANO DATA
(1) Excluding same-day visitors.
It is interesting to notice that a better utilisation of tourist resources seems to occur in the regions with a
stronger economic development, as to indicate a certain link between the two phenomena. This relation is
shown in Figure 4.1, where the tourist exploitation ratio has been plotted against the per-capita GDP of the
regions, taken as an indicator of economic development.
17
Figure 4.1 - Plot of Italian regions' degree of exploitation of tourism potential against
economic development.
28,000
Trentino A.A.
26,000
Lombardia
Emilia R.
Per-capita GDP - euro
24,000
Valle d'A.
Piemonte
22,000
Friuli V.G.
20,000
Umbria
Veneto
Toscana
Lazio
Liguria
Marche
18,000
Abruzzi
16,000
Molise
Basilicata
14,000
Sardegna
Campania
Sicilia
Puglia
12,000
Calabria
10,000
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Degree of exploitation of tourism potential - euro millions per attractiveness point
SOURCE: UIC ELABORATION ON UIC AND TOURING CLUB ITALIANO DATA
While the presence of a certain correlation is rather clear, the direction of the cause-effect link can not be
easily identified. Is the economic development of the region that determines the regions' capability to
valorise its tourism resources? Or is rather the tourist valorisation of the area that promotes economic
wealth? The first hypothesis seems to be plausible, as it can be argued that the economic development of the
region certainly creates a favourable background for the development of tourism. For instance, investments
in infrastructures for the tourism industry (accommodations, transport connections, promotion activities, etc.)
can be more easily undertaken in wealthy regions.
Nevertheless, the second hypothesis cannot be disregarded. It could be argued, for example, that a proper
valorisation of tourism in the South of Italy has always been problematic, for geographical 15 and other
reasons. This is likely to have contributed, at least partially, to the economic underdevelopment of those
regions.
15
Indeed, the geographic accessibility of the regions has been disregarded in the evaluation of attractiveness, while it
could play an important role: the easier, or cheaper, the region is to reach, the higher are the probability of attracting
tourists.
18
5. Tourism and regional development
Following the hypothesis that tourism can provide important impulse on economic development, we try an
approximate quantification of the short-term impact of tourist consumption on regional economies, in terms
of GDP and employment. On this respect, we rely on a study of CISET16, which has developed regional
activation matrices for tourist expenditure. These matrices allow calculating the impact on GDP and
employment of aggregate tourist expenditure variations. CISET estimated that, as an average for the whole
Italian economy, each EUR million of tourist expenditure activates about 0.8 EUR million of value added
and 28 employees. These results include the so-called direct and indirect effects, where the former stem from
the economic activities directly getting in contact with the tourist, while the latter originate from the
subsequent steps of the production chain17.
The CISET matrices also estimate the regional dispersion of the value added activation. In fact, not all the
activated value added is created in the region where tourism activities actually occur, as indirect effects can
stimulate production in other regions. This dispersion effect is geographically differentiated. It is more
evident in the regions with a weaker productive structure, which, consequently, are more dependent on the
supply of other regions, as it is the case of the regions of the South of Italy.
Through this informative tool we simulate a hypothesis of increase of tourist expenditure in the regions
where some unexploited potential has been detected. It could, for instance, be assumed that all regions, in a
somewhat ideal scenario, manage to valorise their traveller attractiveness up to the national average (as
mentioned, 55.1 EUR million for each attractiveness point), as shown in Table 5.1.
It is interesting to notice that this ideal activation in some cases hits the constraint of the labour force
available in the region, under the assumption that there is no inter-regional labour mobility. Some of the
regions with a potential improvement in tourism activity are in a situation of "full employment" or very low
unemployment rate, which could clearly limit the possible development. As an example, in the region of
Marche the current unemployment rate is 3.7%. The supposed activation tourist expenditure (euro 1,047
millions for Marche) would require around 17,000 new employees, representing 2.6% of Marche's labour
force. In general, it is not plausible that the employment rate might be below a certain threshold that is
normally considered as a frictional or physiological rate. Therefore, whenever the unemployment rate of the
region is rather low, we assume that a limit exists to the development of tourist activity, given by the
availability of local human resources.
16
Manente, M., "Il turismo nell'economia italiana" in Becheri, E. et al. (2003), XII Rapporto sul turismo italiano,
Firenze.
17
See Costa, P. and Manente, M. (2000), Economia del turismo, Milano.
19
Table 5.1 - Activation of tourism resources.
Activation
Current situation
Tourist GDP (Euro
expendit millions)
ure (Euro
millions)
PIEMONTE
VALLE D'AOSTA
LIGURIA
LOMBARDIA
TRENTINO
VENETO
FRIULI GIULIA
EMILIA ROMAGNA
TOSCANA
UMBRIA
MARCHE
LAZIO
ABRUZZI
MOLISE
CAMPANIA
PUGLIA
BASILICATA
CALABRIA
SICILIA
SARDEGNA
ITALY
Unemployme New tourist
nt rate (% of expenditure
labour force)
(Euro
millions)
2,041
666
2,697
6,197
2,526
6,348
1,358
4,196
6,559
898
1,131
6,431
1,061
99
2,953
2,246
292
1,597
3,399
2,401
96,010
2,791
32,899
227,998
25,345
103,951
25,393
98,942
76,153
16,066
29,218
115,343
21,017
5,074
74,178
51,918
8,734
25,040
64,816
23,781
4.8%
3.4%
6.0%
3.6%
2.5%
3.4%
3.8%
3.1%
4.7%
5.2%
3.7%
8.7%
5.3%
12.9%
20.2%
13.8%
16.1%
23.5%
20.1%
16.8%
1,041.6
83.0
55,095
1,124,666
8.7%
8,262.9
216.7
1,700.8
1,046.8
470.0
521.4
1,196.2
780.1
667.0
82.6
456.7
Increase
in GDP
(%)
Increase in
employees
(units)
Increase in
employees
(% of labour
force)
0.5%
1.8%
0.4%
0.3%
0.4%
0.3%
0.8%
0.4%
0.4%
3.0%
1.8%
0.4%
1.6%
3.8%
1.2%
1.2%
2.1%
0.5%
0.6%
0.4%
14,517
1,685
4,294
21,481
3,590
9,932
7,030
13,893
10,868
16,019
16,929
14,918
10,768
6,394
29,364
21,209
6,083
4,395
13,610
2,919
0.8%
2.9%
0.6%
0.5%
0.8%
0.5%
1.3%
0.7%
0.7%
4.6%
2.6%
0.7%
2.1%
5.2%
1.4%
1.5%
2.8%
0.6%
0.8%
0.4%
0.6%
229,897
1.0%
SOURCE: UIC AND ISTAT
Taking into account the limitation of the labour factor, we modify the initial hypothesis of activation,
simulating an increase of expenditure only in those regions with both an unexploited tourism potential and a
high unemployment rate (higher than 10%), highlighted with an ellipse in figure 5.1. The regions included in
this group are exclusively in the southern part of the country. Abruzzi and Sardegna are the only two
southern regions not complying with the mentioned two criteria because of, respectively, a low
unemployment rate and a degree of exploitation of the tourism potential slightly higher than the national
average.
20
Figure 5.1 - Plot of Italian regions' degree of exploitation of tourism potential against
unemployment rate.
Unemployement rate
25.00%
Regions with activation
Calabria
Campania Sicilia
potential
20.00%
Sardegna
Basilicata
15.00%
Molise
Puglia
10.00%
Lazio
Abruzzi
Umbria
MarchePiemonteFriuli V.G.
Valle d'A.
5.00%
Liguria
Lombardia
Emilia R.
Toscana
Veneto
Trentino A.A.
0.00%
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Degree of exploitation of tourism potential - euro millions per attractiveness point
We now formulate again the hypothesis that the tourism demand is increased up to the national average
exploitation (euro 55.1 millions per attractiveness point), but only for the six regions identified as capable to
supply the local labour force that would be needed. In figure 5.2 the resulting unemployment rate reduction
is shown. The stronger benefits would be obtained by those regions with a lower current tourist expenditure
such as Molise (from 12.9% to 8.1%) and Basilicata (from 16.1% to 13.5%). Regions that presently show a
better capability of valorisation of tourism would obtain less significant benefits (i.e. Calabria and Sicilia).
Figure 5.2 - Plot of Italian regions' degree of exploitation of tourism potential against
unemployment rate, present and in the ideal scenario.
26.00%
Calabria 23.5%
24.00%
23.0%
Unemployement rate
22.00%
Campania 20.2%
Sicilia 20.1%
20.00%
19.5%
18.9%
18.00%
Basilicata 16.1%
16.00%
Puglia 13.8%
Molise 12.9%
14.00%
13.5%
12.5%
12.00%
10.00%
8.1%
8.00%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Degree of exploitation of tourism potential - euro millions per attractiveness point
21
6. Concluding remarks
The analysis has showed that Italian regions are clearly diversified as regards their pure tourist potential or
attractiveness, i.e. the intrinsic qualities of the product (the destination) they offer in the - increasingly
competitive - international and domestic markets.
Also different from one region to the other is the degree of exploitation of that tourist potential. Some
regions appear to be successful in adding extra-value to the 'basic' region attractiveness, by improving the
accessibility and the image of their tourist products, by means of appropriate investments or the efficient
allocation / combination of the available resources. Symmetrically, it seems that other regions have
substantially failed to exploit their potential to attract visitors. This is the case of most Italy's Southern
regions.
But the study has pointed out that the regions of the South of Italy are of the utmost relevance because of an
additional element. These destinations are characterised by a structurally large unemployment rate.
Consequently, the expansion of tourist demand that the ideal scenario would imply could be theoretically
satisfied by the local offer of unemployed labour force.
Hence, the study confirms and qualifies, in relation to the scope of internal tourism, what a previous work, in
Touring Club Italiano - Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi (1998), found in the more restricted area of inbound
tourism. The relevance of the policy-making issue of a strengthening of the promotion of tourism in Italy's
Mezzogiorno is then reinforced.
As mentioned in the introduction, it is not the ambition of the analysis to be conclusive, as it could be
improved in many respects. We stress here that the study would very much gain solidity from the
improvement in data sources, particularly with the substitution of the estimated figures on domestic tourism
expenditure with official data. The latter might hopefully be available in the next few years, as this
information is indispensable for the development of the country's Tourism Satellite Account.
Moreover, a possible direction for improvement would be the consideration of certain trans-regional effects
that are disregarded in this paper. The increase of tourism consumption in one region can be detrimental for
other competitor regions, as domestic tourists can be diverted from one Italian region to another. When this
occurs, the benefits tend to cancel out at a national level. A net benefit for the country as a whole can
however be achieved in many ways, as, for instance, capturing foreign international travellers from nonItalian destinations, diverting Italian travellers from foreign to domestic destinations or prompting new
tourism demand.
Finally, it should also be considered that, even in an ideal scenario, tourism development can bring negative
effects. A strong and rapid growth of tourism, even disregarding the relevant negative implications for the
socio-cultural dimension (modifications of the destinations' system of values, life-styles, traditions, etc.), can
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have a harmful impact for the mere economic sphere. One of the worst dangers that is usually mentioned is
the so called crowding out process, which occurs, in a given destination, when the non-tourist economic
activities tend to disappear because the tourism sector attracts all the available resources 18, with a tendency
towards a mono-sectoral economy that certainly involves problem of sustainability.
7. References
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Biagioli, A. (1997), “Sample Survey on Italian International Tourism”, in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Third International Forum on Tourism Statistics, Paris
Costa, P. and Manente, M. (2000), Economia del turismo, Milano
Eurostat (2000), Technical Group Travel Report. Revision of the Collection Systems for the Travel item of
the Balance of Payments of EU Member States Following Stage Three of the EMU, Luxembourg
Eurostat, European Implementation Manual on Tourism Satellite Accounts, 2002, Luxembourg
European Commission, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Tourism
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International Monetary Fund (1993), Balance of Payments Manual - Fifth Edition, Washington DC
ISTAT (2002), I viaggi in Italia e all'estero nel 2001, Roma
Littlejohn, D. (2001), "Business Travel Markets: New Paradigms, New Information Needs?" in Lennon, J.
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italiano, Firenze.
Mirto, A. P. and Ortolani, G. G. (1998), Methodology for The Collection of Statistics on Tourist
Movements at Land Frontiers, Seminar “Frontier Statistics in European Countries” (World Tourism
Organization), Madrid
Prud'homme R. (1985), "Il futuro industriale di Venezia", in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development, Rapporto sulla rigenerazione industriale di Venezia, Paris.
Touring Club Italiano - Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi (1998), Turismo estero al Sud: una occasione di
sviluppo, Roma
Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi (1996), Indagine campionaria sul turismo internazionale dell’Italia. Luglio.
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United Nations - World Tourism Organisation (1993), Recommendations on Tourism Statistics, Madrid New York
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18
For a formalization of the process see Prud'homme R. (1985), "Il futuro industriale di Venezia", in Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development, Rapporto sulla rigenerazione industriale di Venezia, Paris.
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