Italy's Tourism Strategy 2023–27: Five Pillars, No Published Targets, and What the Data Shows So Far

What the plan is, and how it became law

The legal basis is article 34-quinquies of Decree-Law 179/2012, converted by Law 221/2012. It requires the Government to adopt a tourism plan on the Minister's proposal, after hearing the Conferenza Stato-Regioni and obtaining the opinion of the parliamentary committees. The plan must cover at least five years, be updated every two years, and be carried out through an annual implementing programme adopted by the Minister. The joint research dossier of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies on the draft, dated 21 April 2023, sets out these rules on page 5.

The draft reached Parliament on 5 April 2023 as Atto del Governo n. 39. The Conferenza Stato-Regioni had already given a favourable opinion on 2 March 2023. ISTAT gave evidence on the draft to the Chamber's productive activities committee on 10 May 2023. The same committee approved a favourable opinion on 17 May 2023. Corriere Comunicazioni reported that the Senate committee had already given its opinion, while the Ministry's notes to its 2024 accounts date the Senate committee's opinion to the same day; Corriere Comunicazioni also reported that the Democratic Party abstained and the Five Star Movement voted against. The Council of Ministers gave final approval on 17 July 2023, according to the Chamber's research service and the Ministry's own performance report for 2023. No publication in the Gazzetta Ufficiale was found.

The Ministry has since described the adoption in two ways. Its notes to the 2024 accounts, published in July 2026, say the plan was "approvato dalla X Commissione della Camera" on 17 May 2023. A committee opinion is a step in the procedure, not the adoption. The Council of Ministers date is the one the Ministry's 2023 performance report gives.

Tourism is mainly a regional competence in Italy. The dossier recalls that Constitutional Court judgment 80/2012 struck down much of the 2011 Tourism Code and left detailed powers with the Regions. A national plan therefore works through agreements with them rather than orders. That is one reason the plan reads as a list of shared intentions.

The plan replaced the 2017–2022 strategy, approved by the Council of Ministers on 17 February 2017. Its earlier predecessors were more willing to commit to numbers. The plan presented to the Senate by the then minister Piero Gnudi in October 2012 aimed, by 2020, at about €30 billion of extra GDP and about half a million jobs, according to the committee's record of 29 October 2012. The 2017 plan announced a table of quantitative targets, "Tabella D.3.1". The 2023 draft contains no equivalent table.

Five pillars, eight segments and no outcome targets

The plan's five pillars are governance; innovation; quality and inclusion; training and professional careers; and sustainability. Its four general objectives are to innovate, specialise and integrate the national offer; to raise competitiveness; to develop effective marketing; and to build efficient, participatory governance. Its eight segments are organised tourism, trade fairs and congresses, accessibility and mobility, wellness, cultural tourism, accommodation, leisure, and high-end tourism.

Under each pillar the dossier lists actions. Governance means a shared model between the State and the Regions, with standing committees and online platforms for proposals. Innovation means digital services for businesses and visitors. Quality and inclusion covers infrastructure and mobility, Italy-brand campaigns, a hotel classification system called "Italy Stars & Rating" and credit linked to quality standards. Training covers tourism workers and the reform of the guide profession. Sustainability covers new demand segments and the use of major events, naming the Ryder Cup 2023, the Jubilee 2025 and the Milano Cortina 2026 Games.

The figures in the text are inputs and counts of things to build. The dossier lists ten national cycle routes and about 11,000 km of cycle paths on disused railways, an 80% grant and tax credit for wellness facilities, port tourism task forces at each of the 16 port system authorities, and 16 regional coordinators for the 2024 "Year of Italian Roots". The draft lists funds: €200 million for mountain tourism infrastructure, €34 million over three years for small tourist municipalities, €21 million over three years for guide and tourism-job skills, and €5 million in 2023 and €10 million a year in the two following years for sustainable tourism.

What the parliamentary text does not contain, in the chapters we read and in the dossier's summary of the segment chapters, is a measurable outcome. Seasonality appears as a goal to lengthen the season and promote the off-season, without a share to reach. Spreading visitors to minor destinations appears without a target distribution. Decarbonisation of ships appears without an emissions figure. The draft's baseline section quotes 2019 as the record year, with 131.4 million arrivals and 436.7 million nights, and cites WTTC's estimate that tourism's total impact was 10.6% of GDP in 2019. It does not say what level of any of these the plan aims for by 2027.

The closest the plan's surroundings come to a measurable goal concerns ENIT, the national tourist board. Decree-Law 44/2023 turned it from a public body into an in-house joint-stock company wholly owned by the Ministry of Economy, with initial capital of €7 million according to the Chamber research service, and the company formally replaced the old body on 27 February 2024. Reporting the committee vote in May 2023, Corriere Comunicazioni described ENIT as the operational arm of tourism policy, working to programming and performance indicators, with a mission to grow Italy's share of the world market, measured by international tourist spending, and a goal of becoming by 2030 a platform of skills, information and tools. No share, baseline or indicator for the market-share aim has been published.

Monitoring is described as process. The dossier refers to monthly meetings of a monitoring committee and an interministerial table; the draft text describes the Standing Committee for Tourism Promotion and the interministerial table as meeting every two months. Both mention real-time data rooms on arrivals and stays, regional observatories and a permanent observatory on incoming tourism. Neither sets out indicators, baselines or an evaluation method.

The money: PNRR tourism funds cut by a third

The plan presents itself as complementary to Italy's recovery plan. In April 2023 the dossier listed the tourism measures of PNRR Mission 1, Component 3 ("Turismo 4.0") at €2.4 billion: €114 million for the Tourism Digital Hub, €1,786 million of integrated funds for business competitiveness, and €500 million for the Caput Mundi programme of works in Rome. The integrated funds were split between a tax credit for upgrading accommodation (€598 million), a European Investment Bank fund of funds (€500 million), a tourism section of the SME guarantee fund (€358 million), the revolving fund for businesses (€180 million) and a stake in a national tourism fund (€150 million).

The Ministry's current PNRR page, in a file named 17 February 2026, lists the integrated funds at €1,018 million: €435 million for the tax credit, €350 million for the EIB fund, €53 million for the guarantee section and €180 million for the revolving fund. The national tourism fund line no longer appears. The Digital Hub and Caput Mundi keep their amounts. On these figures the tourism measures total €1,632 million, down €768 million or 32.0% from the 2023 figure (our calculation).

The output targets moved with the money. The draft plan expected the tax credit to reach about 3,500 businesses, the EIB fund to back about 150 projects and the guarantee section to reach at least 11,800 businesses. The Ministry's page now gives 2,700 businesses for the tax credit, 70 projects for the EIB fund and 1,000 businesses for the guarantee section. It reports the business targets and the Digital Hub target of 35,000 registered operators as met by 31 December 2025, and the EIB projects and the 200 Caput Mundi interventions as in progress, with a deadline of 30 June 2026. The same page notes that the interministerial economic committee CIPESS assigned a further €600 million of national money to the revolving fund in April 2022, outside these PNRR amounts.

These are the plan's most precisely counted results, and they are outputs. A tax credit claimed by 2,700 hotels says how many were upgraded with public help. It does not say whether quality rose, prices changed or visitors spread out. No evaluation linking these measures to tourism outcomes was found from the Ministry, Parliament, the Corte dei conti or ISTAT.

On 14 October 2026 Teleborsa reported, in indirect speech, the minister Gianmarco Mazzi telling the TTG fair in Rimini that the Government had invested more than €4 billion in tourism, €2 billion of it from the PNRR. No breakdown was given. The tourism measures on the Ministry's PNRR page add up to about €1.63 billion; other PNRR lines may be included in his figure, but none was named.

What the Ministry measures itself against

Each Italian ministry publishes an integrated activity and organisation plan (PIAO) with performance objectives. The Ministry of Tourism's PIAO for 2026–2028, published in February 2026, gives its promotion directorate a strategic objective weighted at 10%: "Aggiornamento del Piano strategico di sviluppo per il turismo". The indicator is the drafting of an update proposal and its submission for approval. It is a procedural deliverable. The annex's other objectives are outputs and processes too: implementing the guide reform, assigning rental registration codes, Digital Hub registrations, sector data reports, paying out contributions and meeting PNRR deadlines. None measures arrivals, nights, seasonality, regional spread or spending.

The Ministry's notes to its 2024 accounts tell a similar story. They report process indicators, such as the share of implementing decrees adopted on time (11.1% against a target of 58.1%) and the completion of the hiring plan (6% against at least 90%). Tourism figures appear as context: ISTAT's first estimate of 458.4 million nights in 2024, the Bank of Italy's €51.7 billion of foreign visitors' spending in 2023, and more than 28,000 businesses accredited on the Digital Hub. None is set against a target.

The law asks for more than an annual output list. It requires an update every two years, which on a plan approved in July 2023 would have fallen due around mid-2025 (our reading of the two-year rule), and an annual implementing programme. Neither an adopted update nor a published annual programme was found. The Ministry's policy guidance for 2026, signed by the then minister Daniela Santanchè on 30 December 2025, says the plan "sarà aggiornato", together with the Regions, to reflect artificial intelligence, shifting seasonality and segments such as industrial and silver tourism. The same document says the Ministry's performance measurement system is "in corso di aggiornamento" and sets no performance targets for 2026–2028.

What official data shows on the plan's own themes

The plan's themes can be checked against data that existed before it and will exist after it. That is a test of direction, not of the plan's effect. ISTAT, the Bank of Italy and Eurostat do not attribute any change to the plan, and neither does this article.

Demand has grown. ISTAT counts over 535 million nights in tourist accommodation in 2025, 535.5 million in its parliamentary hearing of 12 October 2026, with non-business private rentals counted for the first time; without them the figure is 481 million. On the old basis, nights rose from 436.7 million in 2019, the plan's baseline year, to about 466.2 million in 2024, a rise of 6.7% (our calculation). The Ministry's guidance of December 2025 estimated more than 479 million for 2025, written before either ISTAT series existed. Our analysis of Italy against Spain on tourist nights explains why the two 2025 totals must not be mixed.

Concentration has not fallen. ISTAT's July 2026 data story reports that Rome, Milan, Venice and Florence held 17.2% of national nights in 2025, three points more than in 2015; Rome alone held 9.4%. In 2024 the 50 municipalities with the most nights held 42.3% of the national total and about half of foreign nights. The plan's aim of spreading visitors to minor destinations had no target, so these shares cannot show failure; they show that the direction of travel through 2025 was toward the big cities. Large events added to the pull. Our Jubilee 2025 analysis and our review of Milano Cortina 2026 visitor figures cover two of the events the plan named.

The South's share is modest. In 2024 the South had 57.6 million nights, 12.3% of the national total, and the islands 33.0 million, 7.1%. Together that is 19.4% (our calculation). The Bank of Italy's international tourism survey puts the South and islands at €10.3 billion, 18.2% of foreign visitors' spending in 2025. Mazzi listed investment in the South among his ten priorities in July 2026; no share to reach has been published.

Seasonality is the theme with the least published data. The Ministry's 2024 accounts note that more than half of nights in 2023 fell in summer. Neither ISTAT report used here publishes a seasonal share, and the plan sets none. Mazzi named reducing seasonality as one of his priorities in July 2026 and again at TTG in October.

The accommodation mix is shifting. ISTAT reports that hotels held about 60% of nights in 2025 across the types it has measured consistently, down seven points since 2015, while business-run rentals gained. The plan announced a national hotel rating, "Italy Stars & Rating"; no report on its implementation was found. Rental regulation moved on a separate track, through national registration codes and local caps; the measures and their tax side are covered in our guide to Italy's tourist tax rates in 2026.

Tourism's economic weight is measured once, two years late. ISTAT's satellite account for 2023, published in December 2025, puts tourism at 5.0% of GDP directly and 9.6% including effects on supplying industries. Teleborsa's report of the minister's TTG speech in October 2026 states that tourism is worth more than 13% of GDP and 3.3 million jobs, without a source; a year earlier, at the same fair, his predecessor Daniela Santanchè put tourism at 13% of GDP and of jobs (Panorama, 8 October 2025), and the Ministry's December 2025 guidance gives about 13% without naming a source. International rankings are a separate measure again; our reading of Italy's place in the WEF travel and tourism index shows how they move for reasons unrelated to national plans.

What changed in 2026

The plan has outlived the minister who wrote it. Santanchè resigned in 2026, and Gianmarco Mazzi was sworn in on 3 April. On 15 July he presented his programme to the joint productive activities committees of both chambers as ten priorities: private investment, specialised finance, reducing seasonality, technology and artificial intelligence, workers, new markets and types of tourism, international promotion, the South, sustainability, and a dedicated EU budget line for tourism. Neither the Ministry's July 2026 booklet nor Artribune's report of the hearing mentions the 2023–2027 plan. The booklet lists money instead: €109 million for the GreenTour fund, €121 million under a development and cohesion agreement, €120 million for staff housing, €40 million for walking routes and €320 million for small tourist municipalities and minor islands over 2027–2036.

The 2026 Budget Law (Law 199/2025) changed the plumbing. It limited the current-spending part of the national tourism fund to attractiveness and promotion, with 80% for initiatives co-financed by the Regions and 20% for the Ministry, and moved capital spending to three-year programming. It created a fund to run the Digital Hub, €4.2 million in 2026 and €3.5 million a year from 2027, and cut the ski-lift fund to €39.7 million in 2026, €20.7 million in 2027 and €5 million in 2028. A law on walking routes, Law 24/2026, came into force on 26 February 2026. The staff-housing scheme set up by Decree-Law 95/2025 carries €44 million for 2025 and €38 million each for 2026 and 2027, €120 million in all (our sum); the Minister cited 63,000 beds at TTG, while the Ministry's booklet says nearly 60,000.

One commitment from the training pillar has been carried through. The national tourist-guide reform, also a PNRR milestone, became Law 190/2023 in December 2023, its implementing regulation followed as Ministerial Decree 88 of 26 June 2024, and the written test of the first national licensing exam was held on 18 November 2025, with oral and practical tests still under way when the Chamber research service last described them. The reform is a rule, and it is now in force. How many guides it licenses, and whether the quality of guiding changes, has not yet been reported.

None of these measures comes with an outcome target either. The pattern of the plan carries into its successor documents: amounts allocated and outputs counted, with tourism outcomes reported as context.

What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts

Travellers will not feel the plan directly. What shapes a trip is local: access fees, booking caps, tourist taxes and rental rules set by cities and Regions. The plan's priorities do point to where public money is going, toward walking routes, inland villages, the South and the shoulder seasons. The data shows the big four cities still drawing a growing share of nights, so visitors who choose smaller places and months outside the summer peak are travelling against the trend, and usually against the crowds.

Tourism businesses and investors should treat the plan as a map of funding lines, not a forecast. The useful facts are which instruments exist and on what terms: the accommodation tax credit, the guarantee section, the revolving fund, the new staff-housing scheme and the regional co-financing rule for the national fund. Anyone underwriting a project on the assumption that national policy will move visitors to a given region should note that no such target has been published, and that the measured shift through 2025 went the other way. The threshold that would change this assessment is an updated plan with baselines and targets, or an evaluation of the PNRR measures against outcomes.

Journalists and analysts can cite the facts in the box above with their dates. The claims that should not be repeated are that the plan targets a number of visitors, nights or a seasonal share, that it has reduced seasonality or concentration, and that tourism is 13% of GDP as an official figure. The finding this article adds to our series is that the measurement gap reaches the top. Cities and parks that introduce fees publish entries and revenue but not effects; the national strategy publishes pillars and funding lines, and no indicator against which anyone, including the Ministry, could judge it.