Italy's luxury tourism reaches €10.4 billion, but 25 provinces remain without five-star hotels

The luxury segment is growing faster than the market

Luxury tourism has become a notable pillar of the Italian economy: in 2025, five-star and five-star luxury hotels generated €10.4 billion in direct tourist spending — 17.3% of the entire hotel sector's turnover, which is estimated at just over €60 billion. These are the findings of a study by the Demoskopika institute, which ANSA reviewed in advance; it is reported by Euronews.

The gap with the mass segment

The study's key figure is the difference in spending per night: in a luxury hotel a guest spends on average €702 versus €209 across all hotels — more than three times as much. The segment is also growing in volume: from 2008 to 2025, overnight stays in luxury hotels increased by 111.1%, while across the entire hotel stock they rose by only 14.5%. In 2025, five-star establishments recorded almost 14.9 million overnight stays and more than 4.9 million arrivals; compared with 2024, arrivals grew by 5% and overnight stays by 5.7%.

Concentration in a few hubs

The geography of growth is highly uneven. According to the Elite Index compiled by Demoskopika, the leading regions are Lazio, Trentino-Alto Adige, Campania, Valle d'Aosta and Sardinia. Lazio also leads in money terms: €2.3 billion in direct spending, or 21.7% of the national total; followed by Trentino-Alto Adige (€1.7 billion), Veneto (€1.4 billion), Lombardy (€1.3 billion) and Tuscany (€1 billion).

Empty provinces and a supply shortage

At the provincial level, Rome alone accounts for 19.7% of overnight stays in high-end hotels; together with Bolzano, Venice, Florence and Milan — 53.4%, while the 17 main luxury hubs account for 79.2%. The disparity is most strikingly illustrated by the fact that 25 Italian provinces do not have a single five-star hotel. In total, in 2025 there were 809 such establishments — 38 more than a year earlier — with almost 110,000 beds, but this is only 4.8% of the national hotel stock.

European competition

The growth is taking place against the backdrop of fierce European competition for high-spending tourists. According to Eurostat, in 2025 Italy recorded about 535 million overnight stays across all types of accommodation — more than Spain (513 million), France (472 million) and Germany (440 million); together these four countries account for over 60% of overnight stays in the EU. However, in terms of tourism intensity — overnight stays per capita — Spain leads with 10.4 overnight stays versus 9.1 in Italy and 6.9 in France. According to a BNP Paribas Real Estate report, Spain, the UK, France and Italy together accounted for more than half of European hotel investment; Italy received about €1.8 billion, or 9% of the market, compared with 16.4% for Spain and 14.9% for France. Meanwhile, in the upscale segment, revenue per available room (RevPAR) in Europe rose by 3.8%, while in the budget segment it fell by 1.9%, indicating stronger demand in the expensive segment.

The problem is not only the number of hotels

Eleven key foreign markets — Germany, the USA, the UK, France, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and Japan — account for 62.2% of foreign overnight stays in Italian hotels and, by estimate, €21.4 billion in turnover in 2025; Germany (€6.39 billion) and the USA (€4.69 billion) lead. For Demoskopika, the task is not only to increase the number of luxury hotels but also to achieve fuller occupancy of existing ones: bed occupancy in high-end establishments remains noticeably below the national average of 37.1%, especially in southern Italy, where the supply is newer or highly seasonal. Transport accessibility, services and the fight against seasonality, the study concludes, will be decisive for expanding the map of luxury destinations beyond major art cities and already established resorts.