VistoBoom of visa for tourism in Italy in 2013: the beautiful country won the second highest number of requests between the Schengen States, behind France, and ahead of Germany. This is what emerges from the Statistical Yearbook of 2014 'The Foreign Ministry in Figures' presented at the Foreign Ministry.
"In the world, every 15 seconds a visa is issued," said the Director-General for Italians Abroad and Migration Policies, Cristina Ravaglia - "The data demonstrates that we are able to intercept the flow of tourists and business and that we are winning the competition with our partners - added Ravaglia - "As for tourist visas they are at an all-time high."
The data relating to visas issued during 2013 (2.125.465) show an increase of 13.5% over the previous year. Russia continues to hold the record for number of visas applied for and issued (770 605), followed by China (346 739), Turkey (140 388), India (80 759), and Ukraine (65 185).
From the data collected and analyzed by the Office of Statistics of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it emerged that 78% of the visas have been granted to tourism, 9% for business, 4% for family reasons, and 2% for employment and study. "The decline of visas for study highlights the need for the Italian university system to become more attractive," said Ravaglia.
The Deputy Secretary General, Antonio Bernardini, praised the work of diplomats and employees of the Ministry and presented "with pride" the numbers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "This data is the result of an extraordinary commitment of the staff of the Mae - said Bernardini - results achieved with 300,000 hours of extra work ".
Among the numbers shown in the Statistical Yearbook are following: 41 807 interventions in favor of fellow countrymen, 313 overseas offices, 8,075 Italian language courses organized by the LIC, 261,947 passports issued, over five million and a half of hits to the website esteri.it, profoundly renovated.
Incoming Russian visitors tripled in five years
Russian visitors have increased from 461,000 in 2009 to 1.88 million in 2013. In five years, the Russian tourists who visit Italy have more than tripled.
In the same time period, overnight stays are also growing, up from just under 3.6 million (3,594 million) to almost 8 million (7,827 million), with the expense rocketing from 623 million to 1.3 billion euros. With an average daily expenditure in 2013 which stood at 170 €, up by 65 per cent to the overall average expenditure of other foreign tourists in Italy.
It is the picture of tourism between Russia and Italy taken by ''Survey on International Tourism'' made by the Bank of Italy presented recently in the first of two days of the International Italo-Russian Tourism Workshop. New horizons of knowledge, training, and operatives organized by the University of Milano-Bicocca in collaboration with the Russian International Academy for Tourism on the occasion of the Year of Italo-Russian Tourism.