overtourism

29 January 2025

Distribute and deseasonalize. This is how overtourism is beaten

Medical tourism, by its very nature, is an answer to manage both the phenomenon of overtourism and the policies of deseasonalization of tourist flows. The topic is addressed on Feb. 10 by Raffaella Di Sipio, Director of the Italcares project, in a dedicated institutional panel within the 2025 edition of the International Tourism Exchange

The tools to manage overtourism: distribute and deseasonalize

"Distribute and deseasonalize. This is how overtourism is beaten" is the subject of the institutional panel on February 10 within the 2025 edition of the Borsa Internazionale del Turismo (BIT). The topic will be presented by Raffaella Di Sipio - Italcares Project Director - and will be an opportunity for discussion and networking on how medical and spa wellness tourismcan become a valuable tool for a more balanced and sustainable management of tourism flows.

The phenomenon of overtourism is one of the most pressing challenges within the global tourism landscape and occurs when a given tourist location has a number of visitors that exceeds its capacity to accommodate them with negative impacts on environment, local culture and tourist experience. Therefore, overtourism has both ecological and socioeconomic consequences. By managing this dynamic, pressure on the local economy and communities can be relieved, and the solution lies in extending tourist season, avoiding seasonal overcrowding.

According to the Bank of Italy, distributing tourist flows throughout the year could generate an increase in tourism-related GDP of up to 2 percent annually. In addition, evenly distributed tourism would help create more stable employment for all operators involved. One form of tourism that, by its nature, lacks seasonality is the medical and spa wellness tourism, which, as a result, is the driver for increased revenues generated by industry players, who have the opportunity to diversify their health and wellness offerings.

Italcares' technological solutions to deseasonalize

The Italcares platform was created with the aim of supporting and innovating the Italian tourism sector through key pillars: the digitalization and the personalization of the integrated medical tourism and spa wellness offer. The portal draws on the strength of business intelligence technologies, through which operators can build customized offers and packages to attract visitors even during low season. Italcares' mission itself is, by its very nature, seasonality-free; the focus on one's health and wellbeing can extend throughout the year, and this leads to steady growth in market value.

According, in fact, to a report by the Global Wellness Institute, wellness-related tourism is growing 7% annually globally, and Italy can position itself as a leader in this segment thanks to certain assets, such as state-of-the-art health and spa facilities and the Italian model of livingwell, which can be experienced in a territorial context characterized by natural beauty, historical-artistic heritage and food and wine.