Tourism, Messina (Assoturismo): “2022 will be very heavy for the supply chain”

2021 ends badly and 2022 also starts uphill for the tourism sector. “2022 will be a very heavy year, we have already played it until April and even if the summer season will give a breath of fresh air, in the autumn it will expose us to a new setback”. The one described by the president of Assoturismo-Confesercenti Vittorio Messina at Adnkronos is a truly disheartening panorama, representing a supply chain that includes hotels, B & Bs, restaurants, bathing establishments, travel agencies, guides and tourist entertainers. “Unfortunately we had said and expected it, – Messina remarks – after the over booking of seaside tourism this summer that had made politics enthusiastic by labeling those 5, 6 weeks as the beginning of a recovery, the autumn test has given that we are right, the epidemiological curve has risen and currently there is a total shutdown of the supply chain at the end of the year, even if we are talking about local tourism. We have had to face not so much cancellations as the absence of reservations “. “We hope for a turnaround – Messina hopes – but the pandemic must deliver it to us and, with the disproportionate growth of infections, people do not move. At the beginning of December, the accommodation activities during the bridges of All Saints and Immaculate Conception they recorded significant numbers and we were optimistic about the end of 2021, but now the supply chain has suddenly stopped “. Mountain after early December crackling now in sharp decline And therefore “let’s move the bar forward for a possible recovery to the spring season, but we do not know if this will happen” Messina cautiously foresees in commenting on the data of the Assoturismo survey, on the basis of which for two out of three tourism entrepreneurs will not recover in the first quarter of 2022. “We were told another story, that with the vaccine the famous herd immunity would have been achieved and that we would have restarted but, with the fourth wave, we are in a similar condition to December 2020 “. There are no great prospects for the mountains either.” The mountain had a crackling moment at the beginning of December even if there were few foreigners, so much so that we could hope for a breath of fresh air. Now, however, the concern for the health problem is great and reservations are not received even from local tourism, a situation that has also affected the New Year since it is not possible to have a party. “However, since family dinners are allowed, the hoteliers fear the worst, mindful of how it went last winter when the ski lifts were closed due to the increase in the contagion curve and with the introduction of the orange areas.