The performance of luxury hospitality in Italy is consolidating. While waiting to know this year's numbers, Giorgio Ribaudo, managing director of the consulting firm Thrends, recently presented a preview of the now traditional report on Italy's high-end hotels’ performance. And the numbers by sector are, as always, more than flattering. If the overall hotel turnover in 2022 was around €22 billion, the 5-star segment was able to generate as much as 28.5% of this, equal to €6.3 billion, despite the fact that luxury hotels in Italy have just 4.1% of rooms, for a total of 668 properties and 44,768 keys. But if the weight of the high-end segment on the overall turnover of Italy’s hôtellerie clearly lies in the high room rates, current operating margins are also interesting, averaging 22.9% for 5-star hotels.
Driving the sector's performance, as always, were the international markets, with 73% of the total, just below the 74% of the pre-Covid 2019 year. The main foreign markets were the US (26%), followed by Germany (16%), the UK (10%), Switzerland and Lichtenstein (7%), and France (6%). In terms of location most Italian luxury hotels are in Tuscany, followed by Latium, Campania, Veneto and Lombardy. The ranking by city is unsurprisingly dominated by the so-called Big 4 with Rome in pole position for the number of 5-star rooms, followed by Milan, Venice and Florence. Thrends estimates that at least two 5-star hotels will open in Italy every month this year with 23 total openings on the drawing board, followed by 45 in 2024 and 29 in 2025. Once again Rome is in the hot seat with 14 hotels in the pipeline between now and 2027, followed by Milan with six, and Venice, Arzachena in Sardinia and Cortina d'Ampezzo with three each.
Massimiliano Sarti
Journalist
