Bari, tourism growth despite price hikes: record attendance for August 15th

In a summer marked by controversy over price increases that threaten to scare away tourists, Bari remains a rapidly growing destination. Data for the week of Ferragosto, from August 8th to 16th, show 90,712 overnight stays in the city's hotels and other accommodations, a full sixteen thousand more than the same period in 2024, when there were 74,564. This leap forward demonstrates the growth of the Apulian capital, capable of attracting visitors even outside of its beach resort status.

Record-breaking August bank holiday, a boom in foreign visitors

During the central week of summer, 25,783 arrivals and 30,933 departures were recorded, with a tourist tax revenue of nearly €150,000. International tourism was the main driver of this growth: the percentage of Italian visitors (17%) was identical to that of Polish tourists, confirming—as Tourism Councilor Pietro Petruzzelli emphasized—"the importance of air connections." Following among the most represented nationalities were French (10%), Romanians (8%), Hungarians (4.4%), Germans (3.8%), and Spanish (3.4%).

Foreigners largely chose short-term rentals (31%) and guesthouses (20%), while 36% preferred hotels and 8% B&Bs. Compared to 2024, when Italians accounted for 22% and Poles 15%, the data highlights a transformation in the number of visitors, increasingly oriented towards foreigners.

The comparison with 2024

According to data reported by La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno , last year there were 74,564 overnight stays, with approximately €127,000 in tourist tax collected. Furthermore, in 2024, the majority of tourists chose hotels (45%), unlike this year, when short-term rentals gained ground.

The overall trend since the beginning of the year is equally positive: between January 1st and August 16th, Bari totaled 1,557,000 overnight stays, compared to 1,231,000 in the same period in 2024, with 100,000 more tourists.

“The city is hungry for hotels”

"These numbers confirm that Bari is experiencing tremendous growth," Petruzzelli comments, highlighting the work done in recent years with major events, film screenings, and TV series that have promoted the city. "But Bari is hungry for hotels: it needs beds to continue working on seasonal adjustments with sporting, cultural, and conference events. The Region must do its part to encourage entrepreneurs to open new facilities."

The data, the councilor explains, is also influenced by the emergence of the underground economy, with non-hotel accommodations now more tightly controlled thanks to the tourist tax, which has already generated revenues of over 2.8 million euros in 2025.

An increasingly sustainable tourism

The next step will be to transform the boom in visitors into sustainable tourism. "It's not enough to simply grow the numbers," Petruzzelli concludes, "but we need to do it by putting the people of Bari and their needs at the center. Bari no longer empties in August; it's a vibrant city that derives an increasingly evident economic value from tourism, as demonstrated by the attendance at its museums."

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