The first five months of 2023 brought a boost in tourism to Lucca unseen except perhaps before COVID: receipts from bus revenue quadrupled, tourist tax income almost doubled and 20,000 more people visited the city’s towers…
Assessor Remo Santini asserts: “The quality of this influx benefits all. The city’s identity is the added value that must always be promoted and protected. The verticality of this first data of 2023 attests to continuously advancing trends in various micro-sectors”.
The proceeds derived from bus tickets quadrupled during the period, reports the Pardini administration: registering €380,000 versus €95,000 last year. Santini attributes this dizzying increase to an ever-increasing use of public transport, especially by the many tourists staying in the suburbs.
Another significant figure also arrives from hotel and accommodation facilities of all types: as of July 14, 2023, tourist taxes collected reached the sum of €585,699 against €399,844 in 2022, for an increase of 46.4%.
And finally, in the first half of 2023, the city’s Guinigi Tower, Tower of the Hours and Botanical Garden, also recorded a total of 132,978 visitors (about 20,000 more than in 2022), with revenues of €569,000, versus €467,000 last year.
“These important numbers – says Santini – speak of quality tourism, with flows of visitors experiencing the city’s accommodations, restoration and retail trades…
“These data will further stimulate us to continue with strategic and promotional planning towards ambitious goals for a city which, as an absolute priority, must not lose its soul and identity, the true added values of our local offerings. Precisely for this reason – he continues – the administration is simultaneously engaged in improving services and benefits for its residents, as evidenced by the addition of more parking for residents inside the city’s walls. The parking lots in Piazza Santa Maria are currently being reorganized, while more residential parking will be added subsequently in Piazza della Magione”.
“These data testify to our correct choices in the field of planning and strategy – comments the Assessor for Finance Moreno Bruni. “Without affecting the pocketbooks of our citizens, important results have been obtained and resources have been found to guarantee essential services and to organize new initiatives, which, as we have been able to ascertain in this first year of office, will enrich the territory and the activities of all citizens. Investments in tourism and culture – he concludes – always turn into precious resources for the benefit of the whole community”.
