Abstract

This paper aims at analysing and evaluating features and dimensions of the flow of tourism as characterised in Italy in the last decade. This research is based on a time series analysis of intra- annual ISTAT data, related to national and international types of tourism. The main variables traditionally used in literature in order to analyse the incoming flow of tourism are arrivals, overnight stays and average stays. Through a joint and over-time analysis of these variables, we verify whether their behaviour is basically regular and, possibly, is evolving. The approach analyses the behaviour of the flow of tourism in order to demonstrate the existence of potential cyclical fluctuations and evolving long-term trends. Moreover, seasonal factors are isolated. To define the nature of this flow of tourism, the fluctuations of GDP are compared to the behaviour of the examined tourism variables.