Tourism, a powerful driver for Apulian economy

In last decades, Tourism has seen a continuous growth, becoming the most important economic sector in the world and one of the key drivers for socio-economic progress of a country. According to the World Tourism Organization, considering its business volume, Tourism is one of the most important segments in international commerce and, at the same time, one of the main income and economic well-being sources for many developing countries, as it produces economic and employment benefits in many related sectors (first of all agriculture, food and accommodation services and cultural heritage). In 2017, Italy confirms to be one of the world’s top international touristic destinations, considering both international arrivals and receipts. This paper aims at understanding the political, social and economic factors that led Tourism to become one of the most influencing sectors on the development of Apulian economy in the last decade. The analysis is carried out by means of time series data on recent international and domestic touristic flows (arrivals, countries of origin, final destination and level of satisfaction) in order to investigate on the key success factors of the “Apulia” brand. After a brief overview of the touristic industry trend, a detailed regional analysis is carried out, considering also cultural events. More in detail, by means of the budget data of all companies active in Apulian tourism sector, the main financial ratios are calculated and then used in a cluster analysis in order to identify similar management patterns. The source of data is the Regional Tourism Board Pugliapromozione and the observational period goes from 2013 to 2017