The report released on Thursday by Bank of Italy on the annual performance of the Calabrian economy also took tourism into consideration. According to the Regional Tourism Observatory, in 2023 attendance grew by 3%, slowing down compared to the previous year. This increase mainly concerned foreigners, with the presence of Italians remaining almost unchanged. Furthermore, the levels of attendance recorded in the period before the pandemic are still far away, with a gap to be filled of around 2 million attendances (20% of the total) compared to 2019.
The regional snapshot offered by the Observatory and reported by the Bank of Italy also highlights how the increase in arrivals has been counteracted by a reduction in average stay times. At the same time, the number of passengers passing through regional airports showed a substantial recovery compared to the pre-pandemic period for domestic flights, while foreign flights were 20% lower than in 2019.
Looking further into the data by province, Catanzaro and its hinterland recorded the third best performance among the five Calabrian provinces with a +8.47% on arrivals compared to 2022. Vibo Valentia (+13.42) and Reggio Calabria did better (+9.44), Cosenza (+3.59) and Crotone were worse (even down by 1.59 percentage points). The levels of arrivals, in absolute terms, are far from the last year before the pandemic: Catanzaro recorded 353 thousand arrivals against 288 thousand in 2023, Cosenza 743 thousand against 612 thousand, Crotone 153 thousand against 116 thousand, Reggio Calabria 191 thousand against 248 thousand. The only province to exceed pre-pandemic levels was Vibo Valentia with 424 thousand presences compared to 400 thousand in 2019.
