April in Italy: The Rainy Vita

When looking at the Occupancy Rate split by hotel category, it’s hard to distinguish which one pulled up the national overage for the others, as they were all pretty disappointing. All categories dipped into the negative digits with the midscale category faring the worst by -7.5 points. However, when looking at the split by region, there is a clear distinction between northern and southern Italy. Sunny Napoli was the engine that pulled up the national average in OR, being the only city to go above the zero-mark, at +4%pt OR growth rate. In addition to its Mediterranean climate, a more concrete reason why this southern Italian city had such a fantastic month of April was because of two major sporting events: The America’s Cup and the Tennis Napoli Cup. Naples brought out its very best by hosting the World Series of the America’s Cup from 11 through 15 April 2012. Organizers reported that there were “celebrations among the tens of thousands of Italian America’s Cup fans lining the Naples waterfront to catch a glimpse of their heroes.” Furthermore, the 2012 Tennis Napoli Cup took place, which brought Italian tennis fans to the Mediterranean town between 23 and 29 April 2012. It was the 16th edition of the tournament which was part of the 2012 ATP Challenger Tour. Naples wasn’t the only city showing good OR growth rates. Though marginally below-zero, tourist-swarmed Venice was almost able to meet its OR rate from last year (in sharp contrast to cities in Northern Italy, which seemed to be plummeting to the -10%pt mark). Venice was notably host of its annual boat show. This year´s Venice International Boat Show/NauticShow welcomed 25,000 visitors. The popular Italian event ran from 13-15 and 20-22 April in the mainland of Venice. The show presented around 220 yachts of...