South Tyrol's tourism is booming: overnight stay records despite shorter stays!

South Tyrol's tourism is booming: overnight stay records despite shorter stays!

In recent decades, South Tyrol has developed into one of the most popular holiday regions, especially for tourists from Italy. A recent report from the State Institute for Statistics (ASTAT) shows that arrivals have increased since 1950 from 330,289 to over 8.7 million in 2024, an impressive increase of around 2,500 percent. Overnight stays increased from 1.82 million to over 37 million during the same period, an increase of 1930 percent. These data illustrate the ongoing boom in South Tyrol's tourism sector fr.de reported.

What is particularly significant is that since 2003 the number of arrivals has grown faster than the number of overnight stays. This suggests that holidaymakers are taking shorter stays. Merano used to be the most popular holiday region with almost 350,000 overnight stays in 1950, and in 1990 Merano also led with almost 1.2 million overnight stays. However, in the 1990s, Selva di Val Gardena took the lead, while Castelrotto recorded the highest number of overnight stays in 2024 with over 1.78 million.

Tourism records in 2022/23

Records were recently set again in South Tyrol's tourism sector. According to a report by Südtirol News, over 8.4 million guests booked at least one overnight stay in the 2022/23 season, and the number of overnight stays rose to over 36 million for the first time. There are also 11,747 accommodation facilities with a total of 241,624 beds available to guests. The number of overnight stays by domestic guests remained stable at 10.6 million, while the number of overnight stays by German guests increased to 17.4 million.

The opportunity to invest in tourism is also reflected in the increase in bed capacity: compared to the previous year, there was an increase of 9,438 beds. Over 64% of the beds are in hospitality establishments, while 36% are in non-hospitality establishments. The three-star category offers the highest number of beds with 61,327 beds.

Geographic and demographic differences

The number of overnight stays varies greatly by region. The accommodation density is highest in Meran with 303.3 beds per square kilometer, followed by Tyrol, Ortisei and Corvara. Castelrotto is at the top with 9,487 beds, followed by Abbey and Wolkenstein with 9,151 and 8,908 beds respectively. The quality index for South Tyrol is 4.3, with a significant increase in the Burggrafenamt.

Additionally, the data shows a notable increase in guests from international markets, particularly from Asia (78.5% increase), the USA (36.2%), Slovenia (32.2%) and Poland (30.2%). The longest stay is recorded by guests from Africa with an average of 6.6 days, while German guests stay on average for 4.8 days. Despite a slight decrease of 1.1% in summer overnight stays, winter recorded a notable increase of 19.2%, with a total of 13.6 million overnight stays.

The development of the tourism sector in South Tyrol clearly shows that the region is not only extremely attractive for national tourists, but is also increasingly attracting international guests, which is continuously increasing the economic importance of tourism. Loud suedtirolnews.it the region will continue to be a popular travel destination.