From the Grand Tour to Booking: Italy tourism story. Wine and food takes center stage

Once upon a time there was the Grand Tour, the educational journey that, between the 17th and 19th centuries, took European aristocrats and intellectuals across Italy. Florence, Rome, Venice, and Naples were essential stops, but smaller art cities also offered travelers an authentic encounter with Classical antiquity and the Renaissance. Yet, this was only the beginning, reserved for a narrow elite, of the history of tourism in Italy. Over the course of a century, between 1924 and 2025, overnight stays in Italian hotels almost increased tenfold (from 32 million to 288 million) and today exceed 535 million when extra-hotel accommodation facilities, which have expanded rapidly in recent years, are also taken into account. Among the key milestones of this extraordinary evolution, there are the emergence of mass tourism in the 1960s - when overnight stays doubled within a decade - driven by the economic boom and the development of transportation infrastructure; several setbacks, such as the 52.3% decline in 2020 caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, which particularly affected foreign visitors; and the acceleration of internationalization, supported by low-cost air travel, with the share of foreign overnight stays rising from 33.6% of the total in 1990 to 55.3% in 2025. These trends are highlighted in Istat analysis of the history of tourism in Italy. Among the factors that have made Italy one of the world most sought-after destinations - from the days of the Grand Tour onward - there are not only its art, history, culture, and landscapes, but also its food and wine heritage. In 2025, according to data processed by the Florence Tourism Studies Center (Cst) for Confesercenti based on Bank of Italy figures, the restaurant sector accounted for 23% of spending by foreign tourists. The sector recorded even stronger growth than accommodation, increasing by 955 million euros in a single year, equal to a rise of 7.9%. This figure confirms the role of Italian cuisine, recognized as a Unesco heritage asset, and of wine, its most faithful companion, as a major attraction for international visitors. Dining is no longer seen merely as an ancillary service to travel, but rather as an integral part of the overall experience, closely linked to the discovery of local territories, products, and culinary traditions.
In the 19th century, tourism was still an elite phenomenon, writes Istat, yet it made a significant contribution to Italy balance of payments, as the country was a preferred destination for foreign visitors. Following national unification, net currency inflows generated by international tourism relative to GDP grew substantially. Between the late 19th century and the First World War, they exceeded 2% of GDP and remained consistently positive thereafter, although at lower levels. Tourism revenues, which disappeared during the Second World War, began rising again from the 1960s onward, with downturns during periods of crisis. Starting in the 1990s, spending by Italian tourists abroad also increased, while in recent years the travel balance has remained around 1% of GDP.
Tourism contribution to the balance of payments therefore remains important today, but its overall contribution to the economy is even more significant. According to the Tourism Satellite Account, tourism activities in 2023 directly contributed 5% of GDP, with an additional indirect contribution of 4.6%, attributable to the effects of tourism demand on other productive sectors.
Foreign tourism continues to drive consumer spending. According to data elaborated by the Florence Tourism Studies Center (Cst) for Confesercenti using Bank of Italy data, total spending by foreign travelers in Italy reached just over 56.7 billion euros in 2025, 2.5 billion euros more than in 2024 (+4.6%). This growth is expected to continue, with spending forecast to rise by another 3.9% in 2026, reaching 58.9 billion euros (+2.2 billion euros). The largest share of foreign tourists’ expenditure was devoted to accommodation (45.2%), followed by dining and food services (23%) and retail purchases (15.2%). The remainder of spending was allocated to domestic transportation (9.5%) and “other services” (7.2%). Compared with 2024, international tourism generated an additional 2.51 billion euros in 2025 (+4.6%). However, growth was not evenly distributed and was driven almost entirely by accommodation (+1.101 billion euros, +4.5%) and food services (+955 million euros, +7.9%), fueled by the growing interest in Italy culinary tradition.
Italy tourism growth takes place within a broader context of strong expansion in tourism flows across Europe, where the country has historically played a leading role. In 1995, with 286 million overnight stays, Italy was the European Union top destination in terms of total and foreign overnight stays in accommodation establishments. By 2024, however, it had been surpassed, both overall and especially for international visitors, by Spain, while France and Germany followed closely behind. In those countries, however, the contribution of domestic tourism is significantly higher.
According to Istat, the origin of foreign tourists visiting Italy has changed considerably over time. In 1962, when foreign overnight stays accounted for just over 30% of the total, nearly 85% originated from only 7 countries, with Germany alone accounting for almost four out of every ten foreign overnight stays. By 2025, when foreign visitors had become the majority, 42% came from other countries, and non-European visitors accounted for one quarter of the total. In 1962, three-quarters of all tourist overnight stays were concentrated in seven regions of Central and Northern Italy: Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Liguria, Lombardy, Tuscany, South Tyrol, and Lazio. Southern Italy accounted for only 11.7% of the total. By 2025, although a strong concentration of tourist flows still persists, the share of Southern Italy has doubled, while the proportion represented by Emilia-Romagna and Liguria has declined significantly. The growing share of foreign visitors has also reshaped tourism flows. In 1962, foreign tourists were the majority only in South Tyrol and Lazio; today they account for more than half of all overnight stays in 11 regions, although they remain concentrated in a relatively small number of destinations.
Between 2015 and 2025, Rome, Milan, Venice, and Florence consistently retained the top 4 positions in terms of tourist overnight stays, increasing their share of the national total by three percentage points to 17.2%. This increase in market share is entirely attributable to Rome, which alone accounted for 9.4% of all overnight stays in 2025. During the same period, Naples improved its position, moving from 15th to 12th place in the ranking of municipalities with the highest number of overnight stays. In these leading destinations, foreign visitors overwhelmingly predominate: in 2025, international tourists accounted for more than three-quarters of total overnight stays in Rome, Milan, Venice, and Florence, and for just over 60% in Naples.
Over the same period, considering only accommodation categories surveyed consistently throughout the period, the share of hotel establishments declined by seven percentage points, to around 60%, while the share of professionally managed rental accommodations increased by an equivalent amount, reaching 16.7%. The shares of other accommodation types remained broadly stable: campsites and holiday villages at around 15%, agritourisms at approximately 3.5%, B&Bs at about 1%, and all other types, including mountain huts, holiday homes, and hostels, at around 4%.
One of the most significant developments of recent years has been the rapid expansion of tourist accommodations marketed through digital platforms. These platforms have broadened promotion and booking opportunities, particularly for properties intended for short stays, enabling a growing number of accommodations previously excluded from traditional hospitality channels to enter the tourism market and contributing to a wider and more diversified supply. In Italy, over the 6 years from 2018 to 2024, the number of nights booked through the four main platforms (Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia Group, and TripAdvisor) almost doubled (+92%), rising from approximately 66 million to nearly 127 million. The pandemic represented a sudden but temporary interruption to this growth. In 2020, overnight stays fell to 30.3 million (-60% compared with 2019), before recovering rapidly and already surpassing pre-pandemic levels in 2022, ultimately reaching a new all-time high in 2024. A particularly significant aspect concerns the composition of demand: in Italy, around three out of every four nights booked through these platforms are attributable to foreign guests, a share which has remained broadly stable over time, except during the 2020-2021 period due to international travel restrictions. This proportion is substantially higher than both the overall share of foreign overnight stays in Italy and the European average, which is only slightly above 60%. The Italian experience mirrors broader European trends. Between 2018 and 2024, the total number of nights booked through platforms across the EU-27 increased from 442 million to more than 854 million (+93%). Within this context, Italy consistently ranks third, behind France and Spain, with growth dynamics broadly in line with the European average. Over the considered period, international demand channeled through digital platforms grew faster in Italy than the European average (+93.8% against +75.8%).