Tourism is growing in the province by nearly a million admissions

Provisional data on tourism flows in Varese in the first nine months of 2016 is positive, notably for the segment of international tourism.

The number of tourists from January to September of last year, in fact, has even exceeded/outdone the data of the same period in 2015, which incorporated the “Expo Effect”, meaning a + 1.4% arrivals in total, reaching almost one million (994,955).

A positive data overall but with some major differences, if we go into the details. If tourists coming from abroad were up to 5.9% of growth (605,317 or 61% of the total), arrivals of Italians in Varese are decreasing (-4.9%).

Returning to the statistics, concerning the days of stay, they remain basically unchanged from last year (1,696,670 admissions), but, considering that the figures of 2016 are provisional and still incomplete, the situation will probably be better at the closure.

Here is the data regarding the days of stay, namely the number of nights spent by guests in accommodation establishments altogether.

There is also some interesting data concerning the room occupancy rate (which indicates the ratio of the number of rooms sold and the number of available rooms per cent), the average price per room sold (which is the total revenue divided by the number of rooms sold in the area and the period in question), and the average profitability of available rooms (or the ratio between the total revenue and the number of rooms in the area and during the period in question).

There is a positive performance by going on to analyse in more detail the summer quarter. In particular, we can clearly see the strong performance of the internal flows in Lombardy; over 61 thousand tourists from the provinces of Lombardy have visited Varese from July to September 2016, almost 10 thousand more than in the same period in 2015. The overall stay touches 130 thousand days, 32 thousand more than in the same period in 2015.

As for other countries, however, the greatest influx of tourists, as one might imagine, is coming from European countries, followed by Asia, America, Oceania and Africa. Here are the details:

As for the foreign target, always in the summer quarter, positive results are reported for almost all the main countries of foreign origin: Great Britain (+38%), Germany (+12%), Belgium (8.4%) and Netherlands (7.5%). The exception is China, which sees a 40% fall in numbers, probably because in 2015 this data was strongly influenced by arrivals for Expo.

Giuseppe Albertini, President of Chamber of Commerce, said, “This attention towards Varese as a destination even after the Expo is the best remedy to that commitment regarding the development of tourism, which the regional law gives right to the Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with the Region and with other local authorities. In particular, I’d like to emphasise the work started on social networks with the creation of the brand #DoYouLake? which is attracting interest in relation to our territory”.

Frederick Venturi, president of Federalberghi, said “The fact that the numbers stay strong, even from a year of the Universal Exposition, is particularly pleasing, as it is positive the steady recovery of Malpensa for our area. Of course the question of low profitability still remains for my hotel sector, but the interest in the territory is, however, an element that will help us improving this factor, which is critical to the operational efficiency of our facilities”.

On OsserVa, statistical portal of the Chamber of Commerce of Varese, all the provisional data on tourist flows, updated to the third quarter of 2016 (Source: Observatory processing flows on tourism Province of Varese on Eupolis data Lombardy – ISTAT).