Visit Italy’s new ‘99% of Italy’ campaign reveals the hidden cost of social media’s influence on travel patterns.
While 70% of international visitors squeeze into just 1% of Italy’s territory, the other 99% faces depopulation. The data shows one in three Italian municipalities is at risk of becoming a ghost town.
This is the inevitable result of what the CEO of Visit Italy Media, Ruben Santopietro, calls the ‘Checklist Era of travel’ where social media boosts the same viral destinations while other local experiences remain invisible.
The campaign’s approach is brilliant: using the social platforms that created this imbalance to solve it.
By launching videos on Instagram and TikTok from overcrowded hotspots like Venice and Florence, they’re meeting travelers where they already discover destinations.
For tourism boards worldwide, Visit Italy’s strategy is a blueprint for over-tourism issues: embrace social media not just to promote, but to redistribute.
When platforms naturally concentrate demand on viral destinations, smart destinations use those same platforms to consciously redirect it.
This is something we’ve been doing at Beautiful Destinations, working with tourism boards to build strategies that manage traveler flows to highlight local communities.
Destinations need to realise social media can be a flow management system 🇮🇹
Whilst the ENIT – Italian National Tourist Board is a separate entity governed by the Ministry of Tourism & Finance, their work to promote tourism to Italy has also been fantastic and this year they will be hosting the WTTC Global Summit in Rome.
I can’t wait to come back to Italy!
