The growth of tourism in Italy is expected to continue during the summer of 2018. According to data, 74.4% of international tour operators recorded an increase in bookings for this summer. This trend was also confirmed by ForwardKeys in terms of booked flights.
According to them, international arrivals in Italian airports will increase by 1% in the period between June 23 and August 31. In the month of August, the expected growth is as much as 4%. And during the Ferragosto holidays, the growth of tourism in Italy is expected to reach 7%.
The increase comes mainly from the US market, which has registered an increase of 20% in flight bookings, followed by Spain and China. In contrast, however, arrivals from German airports fell by 32.2%. This was probably motivated by a decrease in direct flights to Italy.
65% of international arrivals in the summer period are made up of leisure customers. These mainly purchase their trips via travel agencies. According to ForwardKeys, agencies have increased their share on the market by 5.5%.
It is interesting to point out the customer target. Great increases are recorded in the bookings of the middle and upper level travel classes. The economy plus class grew by 74.2%, while business class grew by 13.3%. The first class recorded an increase of 45.3%.