Agritourism farms in Italy

The positive trend of the agritourism sector registered in the previous years continued in 2016, for both agritourisms and presences and for municipalities with agritourism farms.

In 2016 there were 22,661 agritourism farms (agritourism farms licensed to provide accomodation), 423 more than the previous year (+1.9%). The increase was due to 1,275 new farms and 852 ceased.

In 2016 the municipalities were agritourism farms were located were 4,866, 39 more than the previous year (+0.8%)

Tourists accommodation in agritourisms amounted to 12.1 million (6.6% compared to 2015), as resulted from Istat survey on Tourist accommodation establishments.

Also in 2016 agritourism farms continued to offer several services. Tourist packages continued to be offered along with different services: 8,264 farms provided both accomodation and food serving services, while 10,390 farms added to accommodation other agritourism activities and 1,
917 offered all the four types of licensed agritourism activities (accommodation, food serving services, tasting of local typical food and other).

59.5% of agritourism farms with accommodation was located in the region of the Centre and South and Islands area, 56.1% of those with food serving services, 59% of those with tasting of local typical food and 62.3% with other activities.

84% of agritourism farms were located in mountain and hill areas, the remaining 16% in plain areas.
The growth in the number of agritourism farms which was registered in all geographical areas was more relevant in the South and Islands area (+6.3%) compared with the Centre (+1.8%) and the North area (+0.3%).

Toscana and the Autonomous province of Bolzano/Bozen, with 4,518 and 3,150 farms, were the territories with longstanding and consolidated agritourism tradition.

Over one agritourism farm out of three was managed by a woman (36%); the highest concentration was to be found in Toscana, with 1,816
farms, equal to 40.2% of regional total and to 8% of national total of agritourism farms managed by women.