Foreign tourists spend 34 billion euros a year in Italy

VENICE, Italy – Foreign tourism in Italy is worth 34 billion euros a year, and it keeps growing, with an average increase of one billion per year. Moreover, Italians started traveling abroad again. These are some of the incoming and outgoing trends of 2014, according to Bank of Italy, published in a report focusing on tourism and the upcoming Expo.

34.154 million Euros were spent by international tourists in Italy between January and December 2014, outnumbering 33.064 million euros in 2013. Italian tourists spent 21.7 million euros abroad in 2014, and 20.309 million euros in the previous year.

In 2014, the tourist balance of payments was positive, namely 12.454 million euros, though showing a little fall when compared to the previous year. This decrease is caused by an increase of international expenses, which are higher than tourist revenues (+6.8% vs. +3.3%).

These are the first data about 2014 presented and commented at the fifteenth conference “Italy and International Tourism: Trends and Results for Incoming and Outgoing in 2014,” organized by Ciset, Università Ca’ Foscari, in cooperation with the Bank of Italy, which took place in Venice on April 23rd 2015.

After presenting the big picture of the tourist balance in 2014, during the first session the speakers talked about the economic impact of tourism in the regional context and the importance of analyzing tourist expenses.

Incoming tourism right before Expo 2015 was the focus of the second part. Representatives from Ciset-Ca Foscari, Bankitalia and Istat discussed the evolution of organized tourism in the last ten years, the recent course of international tourism in Milan and Lombardia and the perspectives for the current year.