The impact of COVID-19 on the tourism sector in Italy: a regional spatial perspective

The recent COVID-19 pandemic crisis affected all economic sectors, but in particular tourism. In fact, it is now almost unquestionable that the tourism sector was hit the hardest. However, the resilience of domestic and international tourism, and its capacity to rebound from crises, has also been recognized. In this context, the aim of this paper is twofold. First, to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on tourism flows in Italy, by looking at NUTS-3 level data on national and international tourism arrivals. Second, to understand whether, and to what extent, some “alternative” destinations benefited during the pandemic. Spatial and geostatistical analyses are used to capture the determinants of the variation in tourism flows in 2020 and 2021 compared with the pre-pandemic year (2019). Results show different scenarios in the two periods analyzed, demonstrating that tourist behaviors started to change, and they are still evolving.