In 2023, Sardinia confirmed its position among the top five Italian destinations for “long holidays”, lasting more than 4 days, for the second consecutive year.
In the total number of holidays in Italy, it emerges that the most frequented region is Emilia Romagna (12% of tourists), followed by Tuscany (9%) and Trentino (8%), according to the dossier ‘Towards summer 2024’prepared by the Research Office of Confartigianato Sardegna, which reworked the Istat numbers from the past tourist season. Among the regions where long holidays of 4 or more nights are spent, the ranking is always opened by Emilia Romagna (11%), followed by Puglia (8.9%), Trentino (8.5%), Calabria (8.5%) and Sardinia in fifth place with 8.2%. Among the destinations for short vacations of 1-3 nights, Emilia Romagna opens with 14.8%, followed by Tuscany with 12.7% and Veneto with 10.4%.
In terms of tourist presences, Sardinia is 14th in Italy, with 3.2% of all Italian presences. Lazio leads the way with 10.2%, Campania with 4.6% and Sicily with 3.7%. In comparison with 2023, Sardinia recorded a 3.4% drop in presences compared to 2022, while compared to 2019 the drop is 6.2%, against +17.2% in Lazio, +8.9% in Puglia and 8.8% in Sicily, with a national average of +2.4%. The 2023 data also show that on the Island there were 14 million 700 thousand presences, of which 8 million Sardinians and 6 million 700 thousand from the rest of Italy and foreigners.
“The recovery compared to pre-covid is still slow and the data confirms it”, comments Giacomo Meloni, president of Confartigianato Sardegna, “but it must be said that times change and the tourist offer evolves based on the requests of travelers. The data also lead us to reflect on how important the deseasonalization and diversification of the offer are. Summer tourism is no longer sufficient to support the economic and social development of our communities. It is essential to aim for a different seasonality of arrivals to also enhance the inland areas. This approach will not only help distribute tourist flows throughout the year, but will also allow us to discover and promote the beauty and peculiarities of lesser-known territories. Investing in the diversification of the tourist offer means ensuring a more sustainable and prosperous future for the entire sector”.
In the ranking of foreign tourist presences, Sardinia, with 48%, occupies ninth place, with an Italian average of 52.4%. Bolzano opens the ranking with 70.5%, Veneto with 69.3% and Lazio with 63.7%.