Sicily tourism statistics 2025: foreign nights up 5.5%, Italian nights down 6.3% on the Region's preliminary count

Three ways to count Sicily, and why 22.5 million is not 17.3 million

Sicily's tourism is published in three series that cannot be compared with each other. Mixing them produces growth rates that never happened.

The first is the official series. ISTAT, Italy's national statistics institute, and the Region's Osservatorio Turistico count arrivals and nights in hotels and in what Italian statistics call extra-hotel accommodation: B&Bs, holiday homes run as businesses, campsites, hostels and agritourism farms. The Region's report "Il turismo in Sicilia, Rapporto 2024" gives 5,801,463 arrivals and 17,348,238 nights for 2024, up 5.4% and 5.5% on 2023. ISTAT's Statistica Today on 2024 tourism, published on 9 March 2026, gives the same 17,348,238 nights for Sicily. ISTAT has published no 2025 figure for Sicily or for any other region. Its 2025 releases so far are national.

The second series adds short-term rentals. The same Region report counts them separately: more than 45,251 rental units with 207,999 beds, 1,336,676 arrivals and 5,372,445 nights in 2024. On our arithmetic the two together come to 22,720,683 nights for 2024. The Region has used this wider basis in public before. Elvira Amata, the regional tourism assessor, gave 22.4 million nights for 2024 including short-term rentals, up 8.5%, in February 2025, describing the figures as not yet final (Quotidiano di Sicilia, 28 February 2025). The 2025 figure of more than 22.5 million sits on this basis. Neither Italpress nor Il Sole 24 Ore, which reported it, says so in words, but it only makes sense on that scale. Applying the Region's own BIT percentages for 2025 to our 2024 sums gives about 22.78 million nights and 7.34 million arrivals, close to the press figures, which supports that reading (our arithmetic, an inference rather than a stated basis).

The third series is the Bank of Italy's. Its annual report on the Sicilian economy, published in June 2026, says tourist presences grew 1.6% in 2025, mainly because of foreign visitors. It cites provisional data from the Region's tourism observatory and gives no absolute number or basis. A fourth figure comes from the Region itself: at the BIT travel fair in Milan on 11 February 2026, Amata said arrivals rose 2.8% and nights 0.24% in 2025, again without saying which accommodation was included.

These figures are not contradictions. They are early and late readings of different counts. A rise of 0.24% and a rise of 1.6% may both be right for different data cuts. A preliminary figure of more than 22.5 million described as stable fits either. What does not work is setting 22.5 million for 2025 against 17.3 million for 2024 and calling the difference growth. That comparison mixes the second series with the first.

The same caution applies to the word "tourists". Italpress headlined its report on 17 March 2026 "La Sicilia supera i 22,5 milioni di turisti nel 2025", Sicily passes 22.5 million tourists. The 22.5 million is a count of nights, which Italian statistics call presenze. One visitor staying a week counts seven times. Sicily's arrivals in 2025 were about 7.35 million, according to Il Sole 24 Ore's report of the Prometeia study. Even arrivals are not people, because a visitor who moves from one hotel to another is counted twice.

National totals have their own break, and this report mostly leaves them aside. ISTAT counts more than 535 million nights in Italy in 2025 when non-business private rentals are included, and 481 million without them. How that changes Italy's place in Europe is covered in Italy versus Spain on tourism nights, and the 2026 numbers in our Italy tourism record watch. There is no regional ISTAT figure for Sicily on either basis for 2025.

In 2025, foreigners grew and Italians fell, and the total stayed flat

The preliminary 2025 picture has one clear pattern. Foreign nights rose to almost 13 million, up 5.5%. Italian nights fell below 10 million, down 6.3%. Nationally, Italpress reported in the same article, foreign nights rose 4.3% and Italian nights held at 2024 levels. The national figures are ISTAT's count, which leaves out private rentals, so they are not on the same basis as Sicily's preliminary count and the two sets of percentages cannot be compared precisely.

On the rounded figures, foreigners accounted for roughly 58% of Sicily's 2025 nights on this basis (our arithmetic from about 13 million out of about 22.5 million). That share is approximate, because both inputs are rounded, and it belongs to the wider basis with short-term rentals. It cannot be set beside the 50.1% foreign share of the official 2024 table.

Stays are short. The Prometeia study put Sicily's average stay at 3.1 nights in 2025, against 3.4 for Italy, and said Italian visitors to Sicily fell below three nights on average. On the official 2024 table the average was 3.0 nights, on our arithmetic from 17,348,238 nights and 5,801,463 arrivals. Short-term rentals ran longer, at about four nights per arrival in 2024 in the Region's report.

The growth rates for 2025 do not agree. Il Sole 24 Ore reported arrivals of 7.35 million, up 0.3%, from the Prometeia study. The Region's BIT release of 11 February 2026 gave arrivals up 2.8%. The two figures were published five weeks apart and may rest on different preliminary data. No source reconciles them. For nights, the Region's 0.24%, Prometeia's "stable" and the Bank of Italy's 1.6% all point to a roughly flat year, without agreeing on the decimal.

The mix of accommodation is moving faster than the total. For the first half of 2025, the Region's update to its economic planning document, reported by Quotidiano di Sicilia on 20 December 2025, put nights at about 8 million, down 0.4%. Within that, hotel nights fell 11.8%, other accommodation rose 15.4% and short-term rentals rose 24.8%. Italian nights fell 5.2% and foreign nights rose 3.2%. Those half-year shifts explain why counts with and without rentals can tell different stories. A flat total on the wider basis can hide a fall in hotels.

Some coverage went further than the data. A BlogSicilia commentary of 17 March 2026 suggested that war in the Middle East could divert tourists to Sicily. It offered no figures, and none of the series above measures any such effect. Headlines describing 2025 as a record year also circulated. On the Region's own preliminary count, total nights were flat.

2024, the last complete official year: foreigners passed Italians

The official 2024 table is the most detailed picture available, and it will stay that way until ISTAT publishes regional 2025 data. It counts 8,697,369 foreign nights and 8,650,869 Italian nights. Foreigners took 50.1% of nights and 49.5% of arrivals, on our arithmetic. The Region's report notes that in 2024 the foreign component exceeded domestic tourism, in a decade-long series that reached its highest level. In 2023 Italians were still ahead, at about 8.4 million nights against 8.0 million for foreigners (our arithmetic from the report's growth rates).

Foreign demand drove the 2024 growth. Foreign arrivals rose 10.2% and foreign nights 8.4%, according to the report, against 1.1% and 2.7% for Italians. Hotels took most of it. Hotel nights rose 6.6% to 12,697,494, about 73% of the official total, while other registered accommodation rose 2.4% to 4,650,744.

France is the largest foreign market. French visitors spent 1,276,381 nights in Sicily in 2024, ahead of Germany with 1,179,355, the United States with 996,557 and the United Kingdom with 772,240. Those four markets accounted for about 48.6% of foreign nights, on our arithmetic. France grew about 13.2% and Germany about 10.1% on 2023, while the United States grew about 1.5% (our arithmetic from the report's 2023 and 2024 figures).

British visitors are a smaller but growing market. They spent 772,240 nights in 2024, up from 714,904, an increase of about 8.0%, and recorded 206,054 arrivals, up about 8.4% (our arithmetic). That puts the UK at about 8.9% of Sicily's foreign nights. British readers searching for Sicily holidays are part of a market that, in Italy as a whole, the Bank of Italy measures by trips and spending rather than nights; our report on British tourists in Italy sets out those national figures. None of this can be compared with 2025 by market, because the preliminary 2025 figures give only a foreign total.

Palermo, Messina and Trapani hold 62% of the nights

The official table is published by province, and the most recent edition is for 2024. No provincial breakdown for 2025 has been published by the Region or ISTAT in any source found for this report.

Three provinces dominate. Palermo recorded 4,283,514 nights in 2024, 24.7% of the regional total. Messina, which includes Taormina and the Aeolian Islands, recorded 3,991,919 (23.0%). Trapani, which includes the Egadi Islands, San Vito Lo Capo and Marsala, recorded 2,544,726 (14.7%). Together they account for about 62.4% of Sicily's nights, on our arithmetic.

Catania is the gap in the pattern. It is home to Sicily's busiest airport and to the slopes of Etna, yet it ranked fourth with 2,088,719 nights, 12.0% of the total. Its visitors stayed the shortest time of any large province, about 2.3 nights per arrival on our arithmetic, against 3.4 in Messina, Trapani and Ragusa. The two inland provinces, Enna and Caltanissetta, recorded fewer than 400,000 nights between them.

Table 2 also shows why provincial and city figures must stay apart. The province of Palermo includes the coast from Cefalù to Terrasini and inland towns. The city's own figures, covered below, are a smaller area on a different year and, in one version, a different basis.

Palermo's "2 million" is the city, and 3.1 million with private rentals

Palermo city passed 2 million tourist nights in 2025, according to figures from the Region's tourism observatory reported by Italpress and BlogSicilia on 17 March 2026. The precise picture is about 2.1 million nights, up 7.3% on 2024, and more than 916,000 arrivals, up 6.4%. Foreign visitors accounted for 63.8% of nights, up from 60.4% in 2024. Compared with 2019, arrivals were up 25.3% and nights 31.2%.

Those figures cover the comune of Palermo only, and they leave out what the report calls other private accommodation, which ISTAT's official statistics do not include. With that accommodation added, Palermo city recorded 1,202,884 arrivals, up 8.5%, and 3,113,741 nights, up 9.9%. The private accommodation adds roughly 1 million nights to the city's count, on our arithmetic from the rounded 2.1 million.

The city figures cannot be set against the province's 4,283,514 nights in Table 2. The province figure is for 2024 and covers the whole province. The city figures are for 2025 and are reported through the press: the observatory's own table for the city has not been published online. The web address of one BlogSicilia report still speaks of "due milioni turisti", two million tourists, for what are nights.

Short-term rentals: almost a quarter of nights on the wider count

The Region's 2024 report shows how far the short-term rental market has grown. It counts more than 45,251 short-term rental units, up 38.9% in a year, with 207,999 beds, up 32.0%. Their nights rose 36.4% to 5,372,445. On our arithmetic that is about 23.6% of all nights when rentals and the official series are added together.

Five-star hotels point the same way on a smaller scale. Il Sole 24 Ore reported from the Prometeia study that Sicily's five-star beds were 15% below 2019. Taken together with the first-half 2025 figures, hotel nights down 11.8% and short-term rentals up 24.8%, the direction is consistent: more of Sicily's tourism is happening outside hotels, and the official series that excludes rentals captures a smaller share of it.

About 23 million airport passengers, and a cruise port just under a million

Sicily's airports handled about 23.1 million passengers in 2025, on our sum of the published figures for five airports. That total mixes sources and leaves out Pantelleria, for which no 2025 figure was found. Italpress's report of the Prometeia presentation gave about 23 million, and the Region's BIT release said air traffic grew 0.6%. The Bank of Italy described passenger traffic at the island's airports as stagnant in 2025, while it grew in the areas the Bank uses for comparison.

Catania is the largest. Assaeroporti's December 2025 note, which compiles the airports' own releases, gives 12,362,395 passengers, up 0.18%. Assaeroporti's full-year table as republished by Italiavola & Travel gives 12,369,485, up 0.2%, about 7,000 more. Palermo handled 9,220,971, up about 3%: Italiavola gives +3.4% and the Assaeroporti note +3.3%. Trapani handled 1,007,409, down 6.3%, and Lampedusa 358,089, up 2.5%, on Italiavola's republication only. Comiso's total is 133,669 in one source and 134,495, down 48.4%, in another.

Airport passengers are not visitors. Each arrival and each departure counts, so a round trip counts twice, and Sicilian residents flying to the mainland are counted too. With about 4.78 million residents on 1 January 2026 (ISTAT's provisional estimate as republished by Tuttitalia), Sicily's airports handled about 4.8 passengers per resident in 2025, on our arithmetic. Italpress's report of the Prometeia presentation said foreign passengers rose 5.1% to 8.3 million while Italian passengers fell 1.7%, the same split as in the nights data.

The 2026 numbers are dominated by Etna. Assaeroporti's statistics page gives January to September 2026 passengers of 9,239,159 at Catania, 8,243,229 at Palermo, 1,082,337 at Trapani, 379,754 at Lampedusa and 325,439 at Comiso. On the same page, Catania was down 3.3% over the nine months, Palermo up 15.1%, Trapani up 32.7% and Comiso up 286.1%. The ash closures behind Catania's August and September falls, and what they did and did not measurably cost, are set out in our report on Etna and the Catania airport closures.

Cruise traffic is concentrated in Palermo. The port authority for western Sicily, AdSP del Mare di Sicilia Occidentale, said on 11 February 2026 that Palermo handled 996,484 cruise passengers over 284 calls in 2025, and its system as a whole, mainly Palermo and Trapani, 1,018,892. The release does not say how passengers are counted. Port cruise statistics normally count passenger movements, so a passenger who starts a cruise in Palermo can be counted on boarding and again on leaving: the figure is not a count of people. Headlines that Palermo passed 1 million cruise passengers describe the port system or round up. The Palermo figure itself is just under 1 million.

Elsewhere the figures are less firm. The Strait of Messina port authority projected about 760,000 cruise passengers for Messina in October 2025, a forecast, not a final count. The eastern Sicily port authority reported about 281,000 cruise passengers for Augusta, Catania, Siracusa and Pozzallo together in 2025, without a per-port split. The Bank of Italy said passenger traffic at Sicilian ports grew 6.2% in 2025 and cruise passengers 7.9%.

What visitors spend in Sicily: the weakest numbers

Spending is the weakest part of Sicily's tourism data. The Bank of Italy's survey of international tourism, published on 26 June 2026, is the official source for what foreign visitors spend in Italy. Its published statistical tables stop at "Sud e isole", the south and the islands, where foreign visitors spent €10,328 million in 2025, 18.2% of the national total of €56,724 million, up about 4.4% on €9,888 million in 2024 (our arithmetic). The Bank's report on the Sicilian economy contains a box on regional tourist spending, and the survey's microdata allow regional estimates; we have not used either, so this report gives no Bank of Italy figure for Sicily.

The spending figures that circulate for Sicily come from the Prometeia study, through the press. Il Sole 24 Ore reported on 17 March 2026 that average spending per night was €96 in Sicily against €141 for Italy, and that Sicily captured about €2.6 billion of foreign tourist spending. The Prometeia publication itself was not found online, so the definitions behind those numbers are unknown. They should not be compared with the Bank of Italy's national figure of €139.1 per night for foreign overnight visitors, which comes from a different survey.

The same study said tourism is worth 4.2% of Sicily's economy and that Sicily accounts for 4.8% of Italy's tourism supply chain. Neither Il Sole 24 Ore nor Italpress says which measure the 4.2% uses, whether value added, output or employment. A press release from the retail association Confimprese Sicilia gave shares of GDP for other regions as estimates and gave no number for Sicily. Until a measured figure is published, Sicily's tourism share of the economy is a press-reported estimate.

What exists is a pattern worth noting. Il Sole 24 Ore headlined its report "More tourists, less value". On the study's own figures, Sicily's visitors stay shorter and spend less per night than the national average. Those are the study's numbers, reported once, and not yet checkable against an official regional series.

Planning Sicily holidays with these numbers: what travellers, businesses and analysts can use

Travellers planning Sicily holidays will find most visitors in three provinces. Palermo, Messina and Trapani held about 62% of official nights in 2024, and Palermo city kept growing in 2025. Catania airport was disrupted by Etna's ash in August and September 2026, while Palermo, Trapani and Comiso grew strongly; check the airport before travelling. One rule with an official text: the Region banned non-resident vehicles on Favignana from 15 June to 30 September 2026, with fines of €430 to €1,731 and exemptions including stays of at least six days, under presidential decree n. 83 of 17 April 2026. Our Sicily travel guide covers routes, bases and seasons.

Tourism businesses and investors should read the totals with the basis in mind. The official series that excludes short-term rentals shows hotels and registered accommodation growing 5.5% in 2024. The first half of 2025 showed hotel nights down 11.8% and rentals up 24.8%. A business benchmarking itself against 22.5 million nights is benchmarking against a total that includes a fast-growing rental segment. Foreign demand is the growth engine on every series, and French, German, American and British visitors made up almost half of foreign nights in 2024.

Journalists and analysts should name the series, the scope and the year with every figure. The 22.5 million for 2025 is a preliminary regional count, apparently including short-term rentals, presented with a Prometeia study, not ISTAT data. It is nights, not tourists. The 17,348,238 for 2024 is the official ISTAT and Region series without rentals. Palermo's 2.1 million is the city, not the province. Palermo's port handled 996,484 cruise passengers, a count of movements rather than people, not more than a million. Sicily's tourist spending has no figure in the Bank of Italy's published survey tables, and the €96 per night and €2.6 billion figures are press-reported from a study that has not been published.

The common thread is the one that runs through this series of reports. Sicily publishes totals, and some of them are detailed. The official 2024 table breaks nights down by province, market and accommodation type. What is missing for 2025 is the detail: no provincial table, no market breakdown beyond foreign and Italian, no official spending figure for the region in the published tables, and a preliminary total whose basis is stated nowhere in the press reports that carried it. Those gaps will close only when ISTAT publishes regional 2025 data and the Region publishes its 2025 report.