Outdoor tourism in Tuscany consolidates its results in the summer season 2026, settling at high levels after a two-year period of slight decline that brought the sector back to stabilizing around the figure of 10 million annual stays.
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This emerges from the survey conducted by Faita Toscana and carried out by the Centro Studi Turistici di Firenze on a representative sample of campground entrepreneurs and holiday village operators.
Slight growth compared to 2025
The estimated balance for summer 2026 shows a substantial hold with slight growth: total arrivals stand at 1.025 million (+0.8%), while stays exceed 7.1 million, marking a +1.1% compared to the previous season. The survey shows that over 48% of entrepreneurs observed stability in tourist flows compared to 2025, 29.9% noted an increase, and only 21.5% reported a contraction. Despite the general increase in consumer prices, the open-air sector has established itself as a flexible alternative for the medium spending capacity segment. Supporting the levels of stays and profitability was also the transition from traditional camping to high value-added formats.
Tuscany is the top destination in Italy for proximity tourism
Italian tourism remains the backbone of the sector and Tuscany the top destination for proximity tourism. The domestic market represents the majority share with 60.2% of total stays (about 4.3 million overnight stays), marking an increase of 0.9%; the foreign market covers the remaining 39.8% of stays (over 2.8 million overnight stays), showing a slightly more lively growth dynamic, equal to +1.3%. Regarding international origins, expanding markets include Germany, Austria, Poland, and the Czech Republic, along with good performances from France and Belgium. Flows from Switzerland remain stable. A setback was instead recorded for the United Kingdom, the Netherlands (which, while maintaining a high average stay, recorded a decline attributable to redistribution towards other regions), Spain, Scandinavia, the United States, and Canada.
September estimates
The positive trend is also confirmed in the estimates for September 2026, supported by last-minute bookings: among the entrepreneurs interviewed, 65.7% expect stability, 21.3% an increase, and 13.0% a decrease in demand; absolute estimates for September indicate over 207 thousand arrivals (+0.9%) and more than 1.3 million overnight stays (+0.7%). Finally, for the October-December 2026 quarter, 58.5% of the facilities declare seasonal closure or are unable to express a trend. Among the entities that will remain open, the expectation of stability prevails (25.9%), against 7.3% estimating a slight increase and a total of 8.3% expecting a contraction in demand (6.6% slight decrease, 1.7% sharp decrease).
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