Italy's Shoulder Season Took Most of the 2019-2024 Growth, While Italians Still Lead August

Spring, autumn and winter took almost all the growth from 2019 to 2024

To test the question we split each year into five blocks. The low season runs from November to March. The spring shoulder is April and May. June stands alone. The peak is July and August. The autumn shoulder is September and October. The definitions are ours. Many travel guides fold June into the shoulder season; we keep it apart because its numbers behave differently. ISTAT uses June to September as its summer, and we report that block too.

Measured this way, the four shoulder months are far from equal. In 2024, on our calculation from Eurostat's monthly totals, April held 6.01% of Italy's nights, May 8.58%, September 10.85% and October 6.74%. August held 18.06% and November, the quietest month, 3.80%. September is the busiest shoulder month by a wide margin, with almost as many nights as June. April and October sit much closer to the low season than to the peak. So Italy's shoulder season months are uneven. September carries close to June's volume, May a little under half of August's, and April and October roughly a third of August's.

On Eurostat's monthly series, July and August fell from 36.46% of the year's nights in 2019 to 35.31% in 2023 and 34.52% in 2024. August alone fell from 19.36% to 18.06%. The two shoulders together rose from 30.49% to 32.18%. The low season rose from 20.60% to 21.76%. June slipped from 12.45% to 11.54%. ISTAT's June-to-September summer fell from 59.54% to 56.91% of the year. All of these are our shares of Eurostat's published monthly totals for Italy, and 2019, 2023 and 2024 are on the same basis.

Shares can fall while the peak keeps growing, so the levels matter as much. Nights in July and August rose from 159.25 million in 2019 to 160.90 million in 2024, a rise of 1.0%. Nights in the four shoulder months rose from 133.16 million to 150.03 million, up 12.7%. The low season added 11.5 million nights, up 12.8%. June lost 0.6 million nights. Total nights rose 6.7%, from 436.7 million to 466.2 million. ISTAT's Annuario statistico italiano 2025, published on 17 December 2025, prints the same 466.2 million for 2024 and the same 6.7% rise on 2019.

Month by month, the picture is sharper. August 2024 had 84.19 million nights, slightly fewer than the 84.57 million of August 2019. June 2024 also had fewer nights than June 2019, 53.80 million against 54.37 million. July gained 2.0 million nights, or 2.7%. May gained 8.9 million, a rise of 28.8%, and on its own accounted for almost a third of the five-year increase. October rose 15.7% and September 9.0%. Every month from November to March rose by between 10.5% and 15.6%. April fell 1.8%, which fits Easter's move into March in 2024. These are our calculations from Eurostat's monthly totals. The data show where the extra nights landed. They do not say why May grew so much more than April.

In absolute terms the gap between the shoulder months and the peak has narrowed. In 2019 July and August had 26.1 million more nights than April, May, September and October combined. In 2024 the difference was 10.9 million, with 160.90 million nights in the peak against 150.03 million in the four shoulder months. Two summer months still outweigh four shoulder months. Each peak month averaged 80.4 million nights in 2024 and each shoulder month 37.5 million.

The shift came in steps. Between 2023 and 2024 alone, on the same basis, shoulder nights rose 4.9% and July-August nights rose 1.9%, against 4.25% for the whole year. The ratio of August nights to November nights fell from 5.52 in 2019 to 5.25 in 2023 and 4.76 in 2024. A lower ratio means a flatter year. It is still a steep one. In 2024 Italy's August had more than four times the nights of its November.

Two things limit how far this goes. Easter moves. It fell on 21 April in 2019 and on 31 March in 2024, which shifts holiday nights from April into March and so from our spring shoulder into our low season. Taking March to May together removes most of that effect, and that block still rose from 18.56% of the year in 2019 to 19.78% in 2024. Second, these are nights in registered accommodation. They leave out day trippers, cruise passengers and stays with friends, and they say nothing about crowding at a single site on a single day. Our ranking of regions by tourists per resident shows how unevenly the same nights fall across the country.

The data do not say why the year flattened. Growth in foreign arrivals, longer airline schedules, summer heat and price differences between months are all possible explanations. None of them is measured in these series, and we do not attribute the change to any of them.

Italians make the August peak, and foreign visitors spread it out

ISTAT's release on July to September 2025, published on 3 December 2025, gives the clearest view of who fills the peak. Italian residents accounted for 53.3% of nights in August. Foreign visitors held 54.1% of nights in July and 63.4% in September, and 53.4% across the quarter. August was the only month of the three in which residents outnumbered foreign guests. ISTAT reported the same pattern for 2024, when residents held 53.9% of August nights.

The same release describes the summer of June to September 2025 as positive overall, with nights up 4% on the summer of 2024. It puts foreign guests at 54.7% of summer clients, against 52.5% in 2024, without saying whether that share is of arrivals or nights. In August 2025 alone, foreign nights rose 3.9% and residents' nights fell 1.0%, by ISTAT's count. These quarterly figures are provisional and, judging by their level, exclude non-business private rentals. They point the same way as the longer Eurostat series, with foreign demand growing and residents' August demand slipping.

Eurostat's split by residence shows two different calendars. Residents' busiest month was August in every year from 2019 to 2025. Foreign visitors' busiest month was July in 2019 and in every year from 2022 to 2025; in 2020 and 2021, under Covid-19 restrictions, it was August. In 2024 August held 21.64% of residents' nights and 15.07% of foreign nights. ISTAT's Annuario statistico italiano 2025 puts the June-to-September share for 2024 at 59.3% of resident nights and 54.9% of non-resident nights. Our own calculation from Eurostat's monthly figures gives the same two shares.

At the peak the two groups moved in opposite directions. Residents' July-August nights fell from 88.14 million in 2019 to 82.15 million in 2024, down 6.8%, and their August nights fell 8.8%. Foreign July-August nights rose from 71.11 million to 78.75 million, up 10.7%. Over the whole year residents' nights fell 1.8% and foreign nights rose 15.1%. By our calculation from the Eurostat figures, the residents' share of all August nights fell from 59.5% in 2019 to 54.6% in 2024. ISTAT's provisional figure for August 2024 was 53.9%; we have not reconciled the two.

It would be easy to read the flatter year as a pure change of mix, with August-loving Italians replaced by foreigners who travel in July and the shoulders. The arithmetic says that is the smaller part. Foreign guests went from 50.5% of Italy's nights in 2019 to 54.5% in 2024. If each group had kept its 2019 calendar, that change of mix alone would have cut July and August's share by 0.3 points. The actual fall was 1.9 points. The rest came from inside each group. Of the 1.6 points, residents' own calendar change accounted for about 0.9 and foreign visitors' for about 0.7. Residents' August share fell from 23.31% to 21.64%, and foreign visitors' shoulder share rose from 35.88% to 38.06%. This split is ours, using a standard shift-share calculation on the Eurostat figures.

The shoulder months now belong mostly to foreign guests. In 2024 foreign visitors spent 96.64 million nights in April, May, September and October, against 53.39 million for residents, so foreign guests held 64.4% of shoulder nights, up from 59.5% in 2019. In May 2024 alone foreign guests spent 27.57 million nights and residents 12.43 million. The winter is closer to an even split. Residents held 51.3% of nights from November to March in 2024, down from 54.6% in 2019, as foreign winter nights grew faster. All of these are our calculations from Eurostat's split by residence.

For residents, the change at the peak is a fall in volume more than a move to other months. Residents' shoulder nights were almost flat over the period, 53.98 million in 2019 and 53.39 million in 2024, and their low-season nights rose 2.9 million. Their July-August nights fell 6.0 million. The data do not show where those nights went. Stays with family, trips abroad and fewer trips are all possible, and none of them is measured in these series. Their September nights were 19.04 million in 2019 and 19.09 million in 2024, so the September holidays described in surveys do not show in residents' registered nights on the comparable basis.

National shares hide large differences between source markets and between destinations. Our profiles of German visitors in Italy and of Dolomites tourism look at two of them. Neither the ISTAT quarterly releases nor Eurostat's monthly table splits the season by nationality or region in the figures used here.

The 2025 break, and what eight months of 2026 can show

From 1 January 2025 Italian accommodation statistics include non-business private rentals with full coverage. Eurostat's annual total for Italy rises from 466,158,045 nights in 2024 to 535,463,245 in 2025, a jump of 14.87%, and the table carries no break flag. That jump is not growth. ISTAT's Storie di dati of 17 July 2026 puts the 2025 total without those rentals at 481 million nights. The monthly figures carry the same break between December 2024 and January 2025.

The 2025 shares in the first table look almost the same as 2024. July and August held 34.27% against 34.52%, and the shoulders 32.19% against 32.18%. That similarity says nothing about whether the trend paused. The added rentals may have a seasonal profile of their own, and no monthly 2025 series without them is published. ISTAT's own quarterly figures hint at the size of the effect. ISTAT's figures for July to September 2025, which by their level appear to exclude those rentals, give August 39.3% of the quarter, while Eurostat's new-basis months give 39.6%. ISTAT's release on October to December 2025 says that quarter held 14.8% of annual nights, in line with 2024. Eurostat's new-basis months give 15.1% for 2025, and its old-basis 2024 figure is 14.8%.

January to August 2026 can be compared with the same months of 2025, because both are on the new basis. Total nights rose 2.87%, from 396.33 million to 407.69 million. April and May rose 6.60%, from 77.56 million to 82.68 million. July and August rose 2.55%, from 183.51 million to 188.19 million. June rose 0.63% and January to March 1.65%. Spring took 45.1% of the extra nights and the peak took 41.1%.

The peak did not shrink in 2026. August's share of January-August nights edged up from 24.13% in 2025 to 24.24% in 2026. Foreign guests drove both the spring and the summer gains. Their April-May nights rose 8.67% and their July-August nights 6.24%. Residents added 3.07% in spring and lost 1.16% in July and August, although their August nights alone rose 0.33%. A faster spring is consistent with a shoulder season that is still gaining. Eight months of one year cannot show a trend.

The single months are uneven. Against the same month of 2025, total nights fell 4.40% in January 2026 and rose 2.35% in February, 6.36% in March, 3.96% in April, 8.75% in May, 0.63% in June, 1.70% in July and 3.32% in August. Foreign nights rose in every month except January and June. Residents' nights fell in January, April and July and rose most in May, by 6.36%. These are our calculations from Eurostat's tour_occ_nim, both years on the new basis. May was the strongest month for total growth in both comparisons this article can make, 2019 to 2024 and 2025 to 2026.

Several events sit inside these months, and nothing in the data separates them. The Jubilee year in Rome ran through 2025 and may have raised the comparison base, as our Jubilee 2025 numbers discuss. The Milano Cortina Winter Olympics fell in February 2026; our Milano Cortina visitor analysis covers what was measured. Easter Sunday fell on 20 April 2025 and on 5 April 2026, inside the April-May block both years, although Holy Week 2026 began in late March, so the spring comparison is less exposed to the holiday shift than the 2024 figures. September and October 2026 will show whether the autumn shoulder grew too. Our 2026 record watch follows each monthly release.

Spain and France give a sense of scale. On the same Eurostat monthly series for 2025, July and August held 27.63% of Spain's nights and 35.99% of France's, against 34.27% for Italy. Spain's busiest month had 3.22 times the nights of its quietest, France's 4.93 times and Italy's 4.79 times. Spain's April-May and September-October together held 36.17% of its nights, France's 31.09% and Italy's 32.19%. How fully each country counts private rentals in this table differs, and we have not checked it, so treat the comparison as indicative. Our comparison of Italy and Spain on total nights sets out the basis issue for the two countries.

Three releases would settle more of the question. Eurostat's September and October 2026 figures will show whether the autumn shoulder rose as fast as the spring one. ISTAT's release on July to September 2026 (last year's equivalent came out on 3 December) will show whether August's share of the quarter moves from 39.3%, a split ISTAT says was unchanged between 2024 and 2025. A restated 2024 monthly series that includes non-business private rentals, or a 2025 series without them, would let the 2024-2025 comparison be made at all. Neither restated series had been published by 7 November 2026.

Airport figures add little on the calendar. ENAC, Italy's civil aviation authority, counted 229,740,554 airport passengers in 2025 and names August as the busiest month with 24.3 million, which is 10.6% of the year by our calculation. Airport passengers include residents and business travellers, which helps explain why the figure is far less seasonal than accommodation nights. ENAC's report also gives February 2025 as the quietest month with 13.4 million, against 15.5 million in February 2024, while saying that every month of 2025 beat 2024; one of those figures must be wrong, so we do not use the February comparison.

What this means for travellers, businesses and analysts

Travellers planning a trip in the shoulder season in Italy should expect company. April, May, September and October together held 32.2% of Italy's nights in 2024, not far below July and August's 34.5%, and their share has risen since 2019. August remains the month when Italian residents travel in the greatest numbers, and in 2025 they held 53.3% of August nights (ISTAT). July was the busiest month for foreign guests in every year from 2019 to 2025 except 2020 and 2021. November was the quietest month in 2019 and in each year from 2023 to 2025. These are national monthly averages. They cannot tell anyone which week will be calm at a given town, beach or museum.

Tourism businesses and investors should note where the extra demand came from. Between 2019 and 2024 foreign guests added 33.3 million nights and residents lost 3.9 million, and the four shoulder months took 57% of the net gain. In the first eight months of 2026 foreign nights rose 5.19% and residents' nights 0.06%. Any plan that compares 2025 seasonal shares with 2024 mixes two definitions. September and October 2026, due in Eurostat's next releases, will show whether the autumn shoulder kept pace with spring. No official count of seasonally closed or year-round establishments was found.

Journalists and analysts can cite these figures with their sources: July and August fell from 36.46% to 34.52% of Italy's nights between 2019 and 2024; the shoulder months rose from 30.49% to 32.18%; July and August took 1.65 million of 29.42 million extra nights (all our calculations from Eurostat's tour_occ_nim, old basis); ISTAT's June-to-September shares for 2024 of 59.3% for residents and 54.9% for non-residents (Annuario statistico italiano 2025); and ISTAT's August 2025 resident share of 53.3%. Do not describe ISTAT's 39.3% as August's share of the year; it is a share of July to September. Do not compare 2025 seasonal shares or totals with 2024 without stating the rental coverage change. Do not quote Alloggiati Web monthly percentages as ISTAT figures, and do not present holiday-intention surveys as measured nights.