Profile and performance of tourism in Italy

Tourism is one of Italy's most significant economic sectors, a major driver of exports for the Italian economy, an important contributor of jobs, and has long-term development potential. However, in the last decade the dynamics and the economic results of tourism in Italy have been less favourable than in the 1990s. Some of the key features identifying Italian tourism include the increase in the number of short trips, the rapid development of tourism in art cities, the strong growth of accommodation facilities other than hotels, and the very high proportion of micro-businesses. While Italy has a highly developed transport infrastructure, placing the country among the most developed, it is lagging behind in terms of recent transport infrastructure and inter-modality. While domestic tourism represents the major share of Italian tourism, the Italian tourism economy is highly internationalised, and inbound tourism to Italy has performed well over the last 20 years, in line with OECD average. However, productivity in tourism is decreasing, and will be an important issue to be addressed in the near future.