Hotels and Chains in Italy 2020

We sent The 7th edition of the Hotels & Chains in Italy for printing the week before the COVID-19 emergency escalated in Italy, which means that all the supply and demand indicators will need revision. What the report clearly shows, however, is that the fundamentals of the Italian hotel industry contain substantial competitive advantages over other global markets, specifically:

– A strong focus on high-quality supply: over 20% of the total supply, over 6,400 hotels is in the four and 5-star segment
– Demand is highly diversified: 51% are international visitors, a number that has been growing for 60 years at a CAGR of 2.5%.

The numbers of hotels in a Chain continues to develop, reaching 1,695 hotels (5.2% penetration) in 2019, the equivalent of around 181 thousand rooms (16.6% of Italian room supply).

The number of brands also grew, increasing by 5.8% to 254 brands (148 domestic and 106 international).

Among the business models, for the first time in history, owned and managed (36%) is no longer the dominant model. Leases are now the top way to own a hotel (38%), with Franchising continuing to fall (from 25% in 2013 to 21% now), and management contracts are slowly increasing share (5%).

The number of rooms recorded in the pipeline for the next few years (2019-2022) is 14,126, slightly below the previous projection (15,650). The vast majority of new hotels will be opened/re-branded/re-opened in the Upscale tier. Second is the Budget/Economy, which will have several big openings.