Work

The impact of COVID ‐19 on international tourism flows to Italy: Evidence from mobile phone data

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: This paper analyses the response to the COVID-19 pandemic of inbound tourism to Italy looking at variation across countries and provinces. To this end, it uses weekly data on the number of foreign visitors in Italy from January 2019 until February 2021, as provided by a primary mobile telephony operator. We document a very robust negative relation at the province level between the local epidemic situation and the inflow of foreign travellers. Moreover, provinces with a historically higher share in art-tourism, and those that used to be 'hotel intensive' were hit the most during the pandemic, while provinces with a more prevalent orientation to business tourism proved to be more resilient. Entry restrictions with varying degrees of strictness played a key role in explaining cross-country patterns. After controlling for these restrictions, we observed that the number of travellers that could arrive by private means of transportation decreased proportionally less. Overall, this evidence emphasises that contagion risk considerations played a significant role in shaping international tourism patterns during the pandemic.

Source: World Economy

DOI: 10.1111/twec.13380

Authors: Valerio Della Corte, Claudio Doria, Giacomo Oddo

Institution: Bank of Italy

Language: English

Topic: Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funder: Banca d'Italia