The Ministry of Tourism, Nexi, and Nomisma Sign MOU to Boost Tourism in Italy

The Italian Ministry of Tourism, together with Nexi, the European PayTech leader, and Nomisma, an independent company offering sectoral and territorial studies, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding. The MoU aims to enhance information and data analysis on tourism in Italy, to strengthen knowledge and promote development through coherent policy decisions.

The collaboration leverages Nexi’s significant data assets and experience, as well as Nomisma’s integrated analysis skills and know-how in the tourism and culture sectors. The Protocol also gives rise to the Nexi Tourism & Incoming Watch, an ongoing observatory that will be designed, developed and implemented to capture the contribution that tourism and culture can bring to the country, through a detailed analysis of the card payment behavior of foreign tourists.

The first observatory findings show that the three countries most represented in Italian tourism are the United States, France and Germany, with the former preferring the big cities, the Cinque Terre resorts, the Amalfi Coast and Central Italy. The French choose the North-West, Apulia, Basilicata and Sicily, while the destinations favoured by German tourists are very diverse: Trentino-Alto Adige, Lake Garda, Sardinia and many of the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seaside resorts.

These tourists also bring the highest spending volumes. Visitors from the United States, Germany and France spend the most on hotels and restaurants, while the luxury sector (clothing, jewellery and department stores) is preferred by most non-European tourists. Finally, the data shows that spending by foreign tourists accounts for more than 10% of total transactions in most Italian provinces, with peaks in Venice (29.1%), Siena (20.2%) and Florence (19.9%).

The significant value of tourism to Italy and its industrial sectors was the subject of the first International Tourism Forum, held in Baveno on 24-25 November 2023. Promoted by the Italian Ministry of Tourism, Minister Daniela Santanchè led discussions among government, international institutions, regional councilors and sector operators.

The Memorandum of Understanding will make it possible to extract further value from the wealth of knowledge and data available to Nexi, informing innovation in the tourism sector and providing policymakers with an additional tool capable of supporting policy decisions consistent with statistical evidence of tourism flows. This forms a key pillar to meet the objectives of the Strategic Tourism Development Plan for the period 2023-2027.

“The analysis and processing of data is crucial, not only to monitor the health of the sector, but also to develop and ground policies for the tourism industry that are increasingly responsive to demands and continuous changes,” commented Italian Tourism Minister Daniela Santanchè.

“We are proud of this Memorandum of Understanding and of being able to make available to the Ministry of Tourism our skills, experience, and in-depth knowledge of consumers, derived from the widespread presence we have in the Italian market and in the more than 25 countries in which we operate,” commented Paolo Bertoluzzo, CEO of Nexi Group. “In collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism, we will make our Nexi Tourism & Incoming Watch available to the institutions and the actors in the system, helping to strengthen Italian tourism – something for which Italy is already admired around the world”.