BOLZANO. As Pierluigi Bersani put it: we had an elephant in the corridor and we didn’t see it coming. The elephant is tourism. For the reason of not understanding it, Bolzano has set all its urban policies in recent years without taking it into account. And now he pays the price. Which is very salty.
Shall we give the numbers? Here, these just came out: in ten years the beds intended for tourism in the city have increased by 43%. But faced with a decrease in hotel beds (-5%) those of B&Bs have exploded: by as much as 240%.
Beyond the discussion on their fate and possible brake in terms of occupation of properties previously with another purpose – for example housing – the question is another. For example, the peak of tourist presences, usually in December – but now in a “democratic” distribution on levels that are almost always unprecedented even in other months – hovers, exceeding it more and more often, above 4,200 per day.
In Bolzano alone – this figure also emerged recently during Renato Sette’s “Restart” conferences – we now have 870 thousand presences per year (an increase of 50%), with well over 5,000 beds in the city . The other data, provided by Astat itself, which makes one’s hair stand on end in terms of systematic coexistence with the expanding phenomenon, is that which indicates that 90% of tourists, probably a lower percentage, arrive in Bolzano by car. Train and bus adieu, despite the joint efforts of the Municipality and the Province between free tickets and requests at hotel receptions. This is what “overtourism” means in practice.
With a continuous push from provincial marketing aimed at increasing attendance even more, through aggressive campaigns aimed especially at the German area. Chiara Manente, expert and researcher on the increasingly widespread new phenomena of tourism beyond the threshold, talks about our, as a “monoculture”. Saying: “Do you know Prosecco in Veneto? Well, all the lands have thrown themselves into producing it with the risk of having no economic alternatives in the medium term”. Thus flooding the market.
Speaking of tourist occupancy indices of places, in Alto Adige there is 207 in Corvara compared to 2.2 in Bolzano. But if you compare any peak day around Christmas, you discover that the capital almost doubles. The province of Bolzano itself would be just above tenth place in terms of tourist influx in Europe – out of 1,200 locations examined – but it ranks well above Venice. Which we considered the mecca of national overtourism.
Therefore the combination of these elements, explosion of bed spaces in Bolzano, indiscriminate influx of tourists almost all by car, insistent marketing, high tourist presences in the province ready to descend on the city (for example in bad weather), absence of contrasting policies specific – and not aimed only at commuters – has transformed Bolzano into a city that, for many days a year, does not move. And not just on the streets: also on the sidewalks of the center.
The urban planner Francesco Sbetti, who moderated Renato Sette’s latest talk, has already explained the meaning of what is happening to us: “No policy that has taken into account the phenomenon of overtourism specifically aimed at Bolzano has created an unmanageable situation. Even for the next few years.” If it isn’t remedied. Now, even the numbers say so.
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