(Finance) – The end of the restrictions due to Covid is restarting international tourism with, consequently, an increase in the expenditure of foreign tourists in Italy. In May, with arrivals returning to 6.1 million (they were 1.9 million in May 2021), Italy’s tourist balance of payments recorded a surplus of 1.7 billion euros (from 0.1 billion in the same month of 2021). This is what emerges from thesample survey on international tourism relating to May 2022 carried out by the Bank of Italy based on interviews and counts of resident and non-resident travelers in transit at the Italian borders (road and rail crossings, international ports and airports).
In May the tourist receipts have reached i 3.5 billion, against 2.6 billion in April and 1.9 in March, a figure almost five times those of the previous year, while expenditure (1.8 billion) more than doubled.
In the last three months available (March-May), there expenditure by foreigners in Italy has increased approximately fivefold compared to the corresponding period of last year, confirming – Bankitalia notes – the strong dynamics recorded in the previous months. In the same period, the expenditure of Italian travelers abroad almost tripled.
In the three months ending in May 2022, the negative gap compared to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019 it remained virtually unchanged for inflows (-18.4 per cent) and reached similar values (-17.4 per cent) for outgoing flows.