Crowd of tourists in Venice, but all commuters: “They don’t sleep in hotels”
VENICE – What the city of water is experiencing in this anomalous October (even from a conditional point of view) is now evident to everyone. There crowd that is filling the streets of the historic center right down to its most hidden streets and finds, represents a real phenomenon that is repeated not only on weekends, but also on weekdays, in which the presences of visitors reach numbers from dizziness. As perhaps they had never seen or registered in the past, at least in times of the year generally considered to be “calm, arrivals underwent a drastic” physiological “decline, especially in the period following the Venice Film Festival. But are the large numbers of this tourist season – a truly unexpected boom often immortalized in the many images posted by residents on social media – also reflected in the activity of the city’s hotels?
COMMERCIAL TOURISTS
To trace the picture of the situation is the deputy director Ava, Daniele Minotto which, while demonstrating a modest satisfaction of the category with the current trend, makes us know as “tourists who are excursionists who do not stay overnight in Venice”. And this figure would find confirmation – according to Minotto – in the fact that the parking lots in Piazzale Roma and Tronchetto tend to be sold out after ten in the morning, in a crowding that therefore does not concern only hotel guests.
“Currently – marks the deputy director Ava – the capacity of the city hotels stands at 50% in the midweek period, to rise to 80% during the weekends”. And a similar situation, but with slightly less attendance, would also occur in the hotels of Mestre. That’s not all, because alongside the data provided, Minotto also traces the identikit of this new type of tourist: mainly Italian or belonging to neighboring European countries, Switzerland, France, Spain and Germany (still few intercontinental customers), with a tendency to last minute travel booking; and that moves mainly with its own vehicle.
The overall data regarding the activity of the Venetian hotel sector therefore appears as a positive signal, especially if we consider the two years of emptiness conditioned by a Covid emergency that prevented travel for a long time. And even more so in view of the next important events already on the calendar, first of all the Carnival 2022, which will start next February 12 (until March 1).
PERSPECTIVES
“From our hotels – continues Minotto – we are also told that European customers turn to Italian cities, as the latter are perceived as safer destinations”. Which translated means that the line of firmness means from our country for the purpose of combating the virus, as well as the introduction of preventive measures such as the green pass, not only has not created too many disruptions at an organizational level for lagoon tourism, but moreover has led to evident in terms of competition with other countries, «where cities have the advantage of being empty».
Of course, the deputy director concludes, what we have before us are not entirely exciting numbers and do not indicate the concrete turnaround hoped for in the sector. But it is also true that “the fact that Italy is lucky enough to be in a strategic position of proximity to the heart of Europe, provides us with the necessary stimulus to continue working”.