Alessandro Masi: “The meaning of my question on tourism data in Siena, discussed the other day in the City Council (go to the article), was to keep the data of private tourist rentals separate from those of public hotel and non-hotel establishments.
In fact, aggregating rental data to those of consolidated structural reception statistics (hotels, holiday homes and B&Bs) is incorrect and should be reported separately. The Tuscany Region on its statistical portal reports the data net of tourist rentals without publishing them, explicitly indicating this in the files, and even ISTAT does not consider it appropriate to disseminate the data for this type of accommodation on its portal”. Thus intervenes the Siena municipal councilor of the Democratic Party, Alessandro Masi.
“The survey of private tourist rentals in Siena – continues Masi on tourism in Siena – began in March 2019 (but in the analyzes provided by the Municipality they were not included among the presences of that year, generating further uncertainty) so, for that year, the data flow is incomplete. Between 2020 and 2021 there was a pandemic that hit the tourism sector hard: it would therefore have been more appropriate to compare only the data from the last two years, when the sector stabilized. Between 2022 and 2023 there was a significant increase in registered rentals, beds, attendances and arrivals. In this case, however, even with the clarifications provided, it is not possible to verify and establish whether it is a question of the emergence of arrivals and presences – that is, arrivals and presences that were there before but which were not registered and therefore not visible – or a real increase.
The data refers to the number of registered rentals, while it would have been useful to also have that of tenants, to highlight, among other things, the phenomenon of real estate agencies renting multiple apartments. At the moment it is only possible to formulate vague hypotheses: if the number of landlords had been constant, then there could have been a real increase; if, on the contrary, the number of landlords had increased, we should not speak of a boom, but only of the emergence of the phenomenon, because the supply of apartments and beds is not so elastic from one year to the next and an increase of 1134 places read between 2022 and 2023 is a lot.
Precisely because of all these uncertainties – concludes the municipal councilor of the Siena PD Alessandro Masi in his speech on tourism -, there is a need for further analyzes and data, which allow us a dynamic evaluation of the phenomenon of private rental, which alone, however , is not enough to produce a lasting result for our community. In fact, it is mainly the public hotel and non-hotel establishment that guarantees the visitor not only a place to stay, but also welcomes and assists him, providing services, human relationships and loyalty”.
