Before the health crisis, tourism in Sardinia represented one of the driving sectors of the regional economy. Among the various types of offer, the agritourism sector has established itself in recent years as a constantly growing market niche. In the three-year period 2017-2019, the increase in presences in Sardinian agritourism structures reached 27.2%: a remarkable result if compared to the national + 16.5%. The pandemic, however, dealt a severe blow to the agritourism sector which recorded a decline of -44% in 2020: also in this case a figure significantly higher than the national one (-34.4%).

This is what emerges from the latest dossier of the Cna Sardinia Study Center which analyzes the trend of this market niche which was particularly affected by the decline in tourist numbers recorded in the pandemic period. Yet, the latest Istat statistics on the first nine months of 2021 show a net increase in hotel and non-hotel tourist presences on the island: + 62.8% (against the national + 22.3%).

In particular, compared to pre-crisis levels, national tourism has recovered decisively, with a gap compared to 2019 that does not go beyond 10.3%, while foreign visitors, despite the exceptional increase (131.8% ), they always remain equal to about half of the pre-crisis levels (54%).

"The agritourism sector represents a great opportunity for the relaunch of Sardinian tourism - explain Luigi Tomasi and Francesco Porcu, respectively president and regional secretary of Cna Sardinia -. There is an enormous space to be filled in order to seize all the extraordinary potential unexpressed by the island's tourism system: we need targeted strategies of seasonal adjustment, internationalization, innovation and diversification of the offer. But at the top of all priorities we need to define a structural solution to the territorial continuity of the air ".

Between 2017 and 2019 the foreign presences in Sardinian agritourism structures recorded a growth of + 34.4%, while in the most acute phase of the pandemic crisis there was a decrease in presences of 69.1%, the study continues.

In the three-year period 2017-2019 in Sardinia there was an increase in the presence of Italian vacationers equal to + 21.5% (+ 13.2% the national figure), while during the pandemic these contracted by -21.9% (- 2.7% the national figure). And between 2017 and 2019 the overall offer of hotel and non-hotel beds in Sardinia remained stable, while that in agritourism structures was even down: -1.1% against +8.7% in the rest of the year. Italy, with a rate of occupancy of beds in agritourism structures - albeit rising from 5.3% in 2016 to 6.8% in 2019 - which is less than half the national average.

(Unioneonline / vl)

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