(Rome) Palaces of the mythical via Veneto or modest pensions of Trastevere, Roman hotels have suffered hard and continue to suffer from the crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Posted at 9:43 a.m.
According to a study by the Unindustria trade union and the Rome Chamber of Commerce presented at the beginning of February, the number of tourists in the Italian capital fell from 19.5 million, including 9.2 million foreigners, in 2019, to 4.1 million including 1.6 million foreigners in 2020, before falling even lower in 2021 to 2.8 million including 1 million foreigners.
Officially, of the approximately 1,200 hotels in Rome, 410 are currently closed and the others are working at around 30% of their capacity, alerted the head of tourism for the town hall of Rome, Alessandro Onorato, in early February in an interview with Corriere della Sera.
But for hoteliers, the reality is even darker.
“About 600 hotels out of 1,200 are closed and those that are open are running at 20-25%. Some 400 have never reopened since their closure due to the pandemic and it is possible that they will never reopen ”, assures AFP Walter Pecoraro, manager of a hotel close to the Imperial Forums in the center of Rome and President of the Hotel Federation of the Lazio region.
In London or Paris, the hotel occupancy rate has now returned to more than 60%, still far from pre-pandemic levels, but much better than in Rome, professional statistics show. Excluding the pandemic, the Roman capital nevertheless has a structurally low occupancy rate compared to other major European tourist capitals, around 70% compared to 80% in Paris.
According to Walter Pecoraro, the current situation is due to COVID-19, competition from Airbnb and undeclared room rental companies and sanitary rules.
“You can enter Italy, coming from the European Union, with a simple negative COVID-19 test, but then you cannot enter a hotel, restaurant or bar if you do not have the vaccine passport “, he explains.
“Huge damage”
“During the three years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, the various illegal structures, such as rooms or apartments for rent that do not declare anything to the tax authorities, reduced our turnover by 30% and drove prices down. low”, he also denounces.
Questioned by AFP, the various competent authorities, the Ministry of Tourism, the National Tourism Agency and the Tourism Department of Rome City Hall have neither confirmed nor denied these figures.
But already at the time, the boss of the Federation of Hoteliers in Rome denounced “unfair competition” from private rental companies, in particular Airbnb, which jeopardized the very existence of one, two or three star hotels.
The hotel industry is in crisis, but not all segments are affected in the same way: according to the Unindustria study, 20 new hotels will open by 2023 in Rome, but these will be exclusively luxury establishments classified as less “4 star superior”.
“I bet on a different, wealthy clientele, with the decision to invest in the hotel to enter the Hilton brand circuit,” confides Mr. Pecoraro, whose establishment is undergoing renovation.
Another problem affecting hotel attendance: “The lack of recognition” in the EU “of Russian and Chinese vaccines for obtaining the health passport is creating enormous damage”, deplored the Italian Federation of Businesses at the beginning of February. travel and tourism (Fiavet).
“Just think that in a city like Rome, Chinese tourism had become the third market in terms of arrivals in 2019”, illustrated the president of Fiavet, Ivana Jelinic, while “cities like Rome” and others cities of art “live above all thanks to foreign tourists who have been absent for too long”.
For her, “if we don’t open up to all foreigners, and in particular to the Russian and Asian markets, other competing countries will […] and we will lose the opportunity for a sustainable recovery”.
Before COVID-19, tourism accounted for almost 14% of Italian GDP.
The State has given a helping hand and “has paid 1.7 billion euros as of December 31, 2021” in aid to the tourism sector, the Ministry of Tourism told AFP, but the lion’s share, 500 million euros, went to travel agencies, hoteliers receiving 181 million.