Beyond the stay
This is a short English version of Matteo Cerri’s longer Italian analysis published on Esco quando voglio, which reads the Airbnb–TEHA/Ambrosetti report on dispersed tourism in Italy through the lens of those working with places, homes, hosts, remote workers, new residents and temporary living. The full Italian version, and the report it discusses, are linked below.
The report’s starting point is simple, but powerful: Italy does not lack appeal. Its beauty, heritage, food, landscapes and cultural assets are spread across thousands of smaller municipalities. What remains concentrated are tourist flows, infrastructure, attention and much of the economic value. In many smaller places, home-sharing is not just an alternative to hotels; sometimes it is the only practical way for visitors to stay overnight, spend locally and discover a territory outside the main circuits.
Matteo’s reading goes one step further. After travelling across Italy for ITS Italy operations and staying in almost twenty properties, he looks at the report not only as a tourism document, but as a map of what could happen next. The real question is not whether short-term rentals can fill more nights. The real question is how a stay can become a relationship with a place, how that relationship can become a return, and how that return can become a longer, better integrated presence.
This is where tourism, remote work, transitional residences and new residency overlap. Airbnb and professional short-term rental operators can open the door. Local hosts and property managers provide operational knowledge. ITS Italy can bring a different layer of demand: people who are not simply visiting, but testing a place, working from it, considering a move, or looking for a deeper connection with Italy.
The point is not to replace those who manage short-term rentals. Let them do what they know how to do. The opportunity is to work together, because places do not benefit only from occupied nights; they benefit from people who buy locally, return off season, stay longer, understand the community and may eventually invest or relocate.
For hospitality operators, property owners, destinations and anyone working on Italy’s next chapter, this is the invitation: move beyond the slogan of dispersed tourism and start building the conditions that make smaller places liveable, legible and economically connected.
Read the full Italian analysis on Esco quando voglio and the original Airbnb–TEHA report cited there.
