Bookings are decreasing in accommodation facilities in Sardinia in view of July, especially in the towns of the North-West.
This was reported by the Federalberghi-Confcommercio Nord Sardegna Study Centre, in a new analysis on the numbers that hotels and other associated tourist realities send in the final balance, including the trends in arrivals, attendance, room occupation.
The call from the offices this time was answered by 30 hotel structures out of the approximately 100 members out of the 110 existing in the geographical area that goes from Stintino to Castelsardo-Valledoria, with Alghero, Sassari and the innermost urban centers with respect to the coast.
On a monthly basis, 17,592 arrivals were sampled, distributed in north-west Sardinia for 36.41% of cases from national quadrants and for 63.59% from international origins.
The room occupancy index stopped at 53.31% of the total, against 54.74% totaled in the same month of 2022.
"A physiological decline - explains the president Stefano Visconti - mainly due to the reopening of the international markets antagonistic to our destination, still unreachable in 2022 due to the effect of the Covid tails, which today offer the Italian market a medium and long-range travel alternative" .
For Alghero, the room occupancy index is above average compared to the rest of the Province and equal to 56.73% of the total, albeit down from 57.17% in May 2022.
«The inflationary phenomenon with the consequent tariff increases of all tourist services, the still unstable weather, the market alternatives with the reopening of all the tourist destinations, the difficulty of accessing the Island also due to the air ticket tariffs and fleets had an almost negligible impact on stays in the month of May - says the president - given that the lost ground on the room employment front is around one percent».
However, the return of tourists from the rest of Europe is reassuring, so much so that in Alghero 69.02% of the sampled arrivals are from beyond the Alps (returning to the pre-covid data) given the historical custom of local operators to contact to international markets, but also in the rest of the province this index reaches 44.93% of arrivals.
Less positive notes on the front of the forecasts for the next summer months of 2023. «This year, we cross-referenced the data held by our provincial Federalberghi-Confcommercio with those made available by the OTAs and by the Revenue Manager consultants who collaborate in the sale of our hotel rooms - reports the president Visconti - trying to imagine how the rest of the season could be oriented. The focus concerns "year to date" bookings, i.e. bookings arrived to date and relating to the entire period under analysis, i.e. up to 30 September. What we note - continues Visconti - is a slowdown in demand, which had started very well since the winter months, starting from the month of May ».
«This has caused the dynamics of bookings to lose ground, which today stagnate compared to the same period of 2022. The Italian market shows peaks of -20% in the months of July and August, which can be recovered from a greater dynamism of the international market ( France, Spain, Great Britain and Germany above all) already tangible - he adds - Nothing irreparable but still a signal not to be underestimated. For this reason, there are incentives for booking by tour operators also by using the price lever downwards, a fact which allows the interested customer - concludes Visconti - to be able to get bargain and competitive prices, if the best use is made of the booking window and choose the holiday period outside the central weeks of August».
(Unioneonline/lf)
