Sardinian tourism continues to grow . Between January and August 2026, the island's hotel and non-hotel accommodations recorded 3.32 million arrivals and 13.83 million overnight stays : 4.0% and 4.6% more, respectively, than in the same period in 2025. This represents approximately 606,000 additional overnight stays. This is according to the new report from the Confindustria Sardegna research center, "Tourism in Sardinia: Between Growth in Flows and Territorial Concentration." After a slow start to the year, overnight stays increased by 22.4% in May and, to a lesser extent, during the summer quarter. The main contribution comes from foreign visitors : in the first eight months, they generated 7.33 million overnight stays, 10.1% more than in 2025, more than offsetting the 1.0% decrease in Italian visitors and bringing the foreign share to 53.0% of the total, notes the industrialists' association. Sardinian visitors, 21.72 million, place Sardinia in tenth place among Italian regions, close to Puglia (22.68 million), Sicily (23.35 million), and Campania (24.04 million), but far behind the numbers of Tuscany (55.48 million) and Veneto (74.16 million).

"These results demonstrate the extraordinary strength of demand for Sardinia, and they represent only the tip of an iceberg that remains to be explored," says Andrea Porcu, director of the Confindustria Sardegna research center . "We mustn't limit ourselves to welcoming more visitors during the months when the island is already in high demand. The real challenge is to create travel opportunities capable of attracting a different kind of demand, at other times of the year and in areas and sectors that currently contribute little to the growth of this essential sector."

In 2024, the direct and indirect added value of the Sardinian tourism sector amounted to approximately 6.8 billion euros, equal to 19% of the total regional added value. The tourism sector in Sardinia remains highly concentrated both in time and space: 93.3% of the 467,000 registered beds are located in the 71 coastal municipalities, and only 4.1% of tourist presences are attributable to the hinterland . On the coast itself, however, concentration remains highly polarized: the ten most visited municipalities alone account for over half of the island's overnight stays, while 50.4% of presences are in Northern Sardinia.

The season also remains short: in 2025, only 4% of annual visitors were concentrated between November and March . Confindustria Sardegna believes that the data, with reference to the concentration of tourist flows in the top 10 coastal municipalities, indicates "the opportunity to implement more comprehensive and bold development policies for the sector, facilitating and promoting investment initiatives even in small coastal or inland municipalities, as other regions of southern Italy have done."

(Unioneonline)

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