Revolut has analyzed the spending data of Italians for summer 2021. Although less than last year thanks to the vaccination campaign, vacation plans have been negatively impacted by fears related to new variants and some restrictions, affecting consumption related to travel and leisure.
Travel abroad is still far from pre-pandemic levels, a drop in card payments by tourists abroad, and a clear preference for rented cars and apartments over public transport and hotels.
These are the peculiarities of summer 2021 photographed by Revolut, a British fintech with 16 million customers worldwide, which has analyzed how Italians are spending their money this summer based on internal data from over 650,000 Italian users.
Revolut’s estimates of Italians’ spending for summer 2021
The share of money spent abroad is up from last year but has not yet reached pre-pandemic levels. In fact, only 26% of spending occurred abroad, up slightly from 2021 when it was 20% of the total.
Instead, we recall 2019 levels, when half of an Italian’s total spending occurred outside the country’s borders.
Comparing and observing the different payment methods, Revolut’s report showed that the total amount spent by card, on average, by the single person abroad had seen a progressive decrease in recent summers. Italians spent €475 in 2019, €396 in 2020, and only €362 in 2021.
Italians continue to be attentive to social distancing. In fact, in 2021, spending on those solutions aimed at avoiding or reducing contact with other people remains at about the same levels as last year. For example, spending on car rental services is up 22% over 2019, while spending on apartments is up 34%, to €425 per person.
Revolut’s Italian customers, also for these vacations, opted for accommodations. This year, the amount allocated to hotel stays increased by only 2%, recording an average expenditure per person of € 256.
Four out of ten Italians (39%) feel comfortable taking a plane. In fact, spending on flights in these summer months is at the same level as in 2020, with an average of €183 per person.
Looking at trains, the drop is slightly smaller but still considerable, with an expenditure of 61 euros per person and 21% lower than in 2019.
Finally, payment data show that Italians have started to go to traditional summer destinations again thanks to the easing of restrictions and the increasing number of people vaccinated. However, most Italian Revolut users remained in the Bel Paese; the favorite foreign destination for vacations abroad in 2021 returns to be Spain, which last year had been surpassed by the United Kingdom, France, and Switzerland.
A slow but steady return to that confidence in travel for tourism. The return to the pre-pandemic situation certainly still seems distant, but the signs that in the Italian population, there is a willingness to resume normality appears today more than ever a concrete fact.
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