Inflation gives no respite: +0.8% trend figure for June. According to data from the National Consumer Union, for restaurants and hotels the increase is 4.3% on an annual basis, 1.1% compared to the month of May. Increasingly a luxury for the few; it means that in the summer of 2024 the average Tuscan family (with one or two children) will have to spend much more on holidays: a surplus of 95 to 106 euros just for the price increases of hotels and restaurants.
At the crossroads of June and July, when the high summer season really gets underway, amidst the general hype of millions of planned departures and soaring holiday budgets, the picture outlined by the Tuscan consumer associations is quite different. «In the catering sector, the increase in prices has been constant for some time – he explains Laura Grandi, regional president of Federconsumatori –. Families who choose a beach holiday have to deal with the increase in hotel rates, holiday home rentals and bathing establishments: according to our observatory, between June and July, with the transition to the high season, prices there will be a twenty percent increase in beach services. This is why more and more families have drastically reduced their holiday time from three weeks to one, or have decided to abolish it altogether or have chosen to holiday on the beaches of Albania, where everything still costs very little. The dilemma – he underlines – is understandable: if you spend on holidays you can put yourself at risk of further impoverishment”. Because in the face of continuous price increases, families’ holiday budgets have even decreased over the years. «Until the time before Covid – explains Grandi – families allocated their fourteenth salary to holidays: 1,500 euros on average for a week. After the pandemic, with the increase in costs, starting with energy, a good portion of the fourteenth ended up bearing the increased expenses, and the holidays were left with crumbs. It is true that holidays are not necessary, but it is not right to work just to pay for the bare minimum.”
«The Istat findings on inflation and increases in consumer prices have a national value, but the trend they highlight is generalised and can also be found in Tuscany – is the analysis of Antonello Simone, regional president of Adiconsum –. If in the post-Covid period and during the first phase of the war in Ukraine there was an easing of inflation, today the pressure is stabilizing on basic necessities. As for holidays, still considered a luxury, the increases are even greater.” This is the main reason which, according to Simone, will determine «greater presences of foreign tourists on the beaches this summer, while Italian tourists will be in smaller numbers. In the summer the seaside resorts are the most crowded: and this causes prices to rise further, while the art cities, in this summer phase, generally show more stable prices”.
According to the president of Adiconsum Toscana, the situation of uncertainty affecting the sphere of beach resorts should not be overlooked.
«The concessions should be regulated – he explains – instead the government has decided to extend the auctions by going against the European Union. There are resorts that, in this climate of insecurity, take advantage of it to increase prices. It should also be added that the prices of many motorway sections increased in January 2024 in percentages between 0.7 and 2.2%, that there were increases in petrol, diesel and airline flights, even low cost: the rates proposed are the basic ones, just add the price for carrying luggage in the hold and the increase is considerable. In this context, some decide to give up their holidays, while others ask for loans for the holidays: an increase in financing of 9% is expected for summer 2024.”
