The IX Bte, Confesercenti Sicilia’s non-hotel tourism exchange, launched yesterday morning, promoted together with the Tourism Department of the Sicilian Region. At the beginning, the data from the research commissioned to the tourist study center (Cst) of Florence were illustrated in the presence, among others, of the national president of Confesercenti Nico Gronchi, the regional president Vittorio Messina, the regional councilor for Tourism Elvira Amata, the councilor for Productive Activities Edy Tamajo, the mayor of Palermo Roberto Lagalla and the municipal councilor for Tourism Alessandro Anello. The results highlight some correlations between the progressive affirmation of the sector and the territorial dynamics of three economic systems in the region: the capital municipalities, the coastal municipalities and the Nebrodi area.
Sicily’s tourist density index rose from 561.7 presences per km2 in 2015 to 671.6 per km2 in 2024, thanks above all to the increase in foreigners who exceed the 50% threshold of the regional total. The development of tourism in the last decade has pushed investments towards hospitality businesses, profoundly transforming the entire supply system.
The driving role of tourism has contributed to the development of new entrepreneurship in the various territorial systems observed with a balance of +3.7% of new productive activities, despite the fact that the resident population has decreased by -4.6%.
One of the tourism-related sectors that has benefited most from the positive trend is catering, which has increased production activities by 2,890 units in ten years. For Vittorio Messina «in Sicily the GDP determined by tourism is equal to 20-22 percent».
The positive effects of tourism, however, did not stop the decline of commercial activities which recorded a negative balance of 6,150 businesses. A complex phenomenon generated by multiple causes, some of which could lead to the negative externalities of tourism, as well as to changes in consumption habits, the depopulation of areas, the general decline in consumption, and other causes.
«The intersection of these few variables – said the director of the Cst Alessandro Tortelli – shows how tourism is now a strategic component of many territorial systems in the region. A series of targeted insights could provide useful information to the governance system to best combine strategic choices between tradition and innovation”.
«The trend of the tourism sector is more than positive – said Elvira Amata –. The work that needs to be done now is to systematize investments to increasingly encourage development of the sector aimed primarily at the sustainability of the territories.” According to the Bank of Italy report, in the first half of 2025 Sicily recorded -4.0% of presences, due to the decline in the Italian component in the face of the stability of foreigners.
Sicily is the queen of non-hotel accommodation in the Mediterranean: 47 thousand structures, but the internal areas are still marginal. This is what emerges from the report of the Observatory on Tourism of the Islands’ Economy presented at the 9th edition of the Extra-Hotel Tourism Exchange.
The document photographs a rapidly expanding sector: in 2024 Sicily recorded 46,925 accommodation facilities, equal to 97% of the total accommodation facilities, for a total of 298,222 beds (70% of the overall capacity). An increase of 28.7% compared to 2023, “which confirms the vitality of an increasingly central sector in the regional tourist offer”, said the president of Otie, Giovanni Ruggieri.
Despite the record in terms of number of structures, the report highlights a critical issue: the average stay of visitors in Sicily is only 3 days, the lowest among the main Mediterranean islands. Corsica reaches almost 9 days, Mallorca 6 and Crete 5. «This gap limits the ability to generate economic value and requires targeted policies to encourage longer stays», underlined Ruggieri. The international comparison also shows that Sicily is a leader in non-hotel offers, but remains weak in the distribution of flows. Only 16% of operators declare that they propose and organize packages in internal areas, indicating enormous potential for the valorisation of the villages.
In Sicily short experiences still prevail while in the other Mediterranean islands 4-7 day packages are the norm and are accompanied by a longer stay. Corsica, for example, offers tailor-made itineraries beyond the week, with prices above 1,200 euros, intercepting interesting market segments.