Bleisure in Italy

The most fascinating locations you've been looking for are in Italy. Here you will find the ideal location for your convention or that incentive trip you've been thinking of organizing. From the Alps to the Mediterranean, you can choose from hundreds of locations, modern buildings, heritage palaces, villas, castles or historic residences, all with a high standard of quality, equipped with all the comforts to meet the multiple needs of your clientele.

On a constant quest for innovation and specialization in the services offered, Italian convention centres enjoy a special architectural landscape setting that is combined with an unparalleled artistic and cultural heritage able to guarantee an evocative bleisure experience like few others in the world.

This market is now so developed and dynamic that it is one of the most important, if not the most important sector of the Italian tourism industry. Data confirm this trend by showing that Italy is at the top of the conference and incentive travel market. This is evidenced by the increase in the number of international congresses with events whose average duration is longer than in the past and with an increasing number of participants.

Accompanying this growth is the spread of large convention centres and conference facilities housed in historic mansions and large hotels. All these factors, along with improved offerings and increased competitiveness, result in the strengthening of our country's reliability within this sector.

Moreover, it should be added that Italy's great advantage lies in the variety of locations and the possibility of offering congress attendees itineraries and leisure activities that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. In fact, destinations outside the traditional circuits, with a high landscape and cultural impact, such as facilities located in villages or castles, are increasingly in demand and now equal the market share of larger cities and cities of art, which have always been leaders in the Italian congress market.

To those who need to organize a congress, produce a large corporate convention, or create an event, Italy can offer more: ultra-modern facilities, efficient services, air, road and rail connections, but above all its natural and historical heritage, which represents an added value for an industry that is increasingly aiming to play a leading role in Europe and the world.

The Northwest of Italy: just a minute away from the rest of the world

Italy’s Northwest: Piedmont and Aosta Valley, with their unmistakable mix of aristocracy, a legacy of the noble House of Savoy, and European modernity. Then there is Lombardy, crossroads of trade and commerce and capital of dynamism and enterprise. Liguria, a strong but gentle land, rich in colour contrasts.

The Northeast: from the magic of Venice to the economic miracle

The Northeast offers extremely modern conference facilities that can meet any need, both in terms of size and aesthetics due to the high level of image of the facilities present. Spread between the Alps, Lake Garda and the far reaches of the Adriatic Sea, Italy's Northeast encompasses a wide range of landscapes. Finally, those who visit these areas cannot miss the great quality of the food and the splendid varieties of wines.

The heart of Italy among art, history, and traditions

One of the reasons for choosing Italy as a conference venue is the fact that the country has a huge historical and cultural heritage and the largest number of artistic and natural treasures recognized by UNESCO. This means it can offer conference attendees an endless array of opportunities for recreation after a day's work. Central Italy is a treasure trove of riches. It is the cradle of the Renaissance, the land where great painters, architects and artists lived and left the most important traces of their creativity.

The South, the terrace on the Mediterranean

Enchanting landscapes, artistic beauty, incomparable tastes, and smells. Southern Italy has much to offer with its warm hospitality, ready to welcome all those who come here for vacation or business.

Puglia is a frontier land: it plunges into the Adriatic Sea and stretches into the Ionian Sea, alternating between wild landscapes and fabulous beaches.

Basilicata is also a jewel in its own right. Calabria, the long peninsula between the Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas, is the southernmost tip of Italy. A veil of mystery shrouds the two large Mediterranean islands - Sardinia and Sicily. Beaches, mountains, villages and delightful towns in this "world apart" that comprises the large Italian islands. It is nice to think of losing oneself in the mystery of their infinite beauty.

Italy, where leisure meets business travel

Italy retains top spot in the European conference tourism rankings and second place globally, surpassed only by the United States. According to the ICCA ranking ¹, based on an analysis of over 12,400 international association meetings in 2025, Italy hosted 616 events, behind the US (with 692) and ahead of Germany (with 565).

For 2026, Italy is experiencing a generally solid travel demand, in both the leisure and business sectors. These are the findings of the EY Future Travel Behaviours 2026 Observatory’s sixth edition, a survey of some 5,000 participants in the main European markets.

At European level, 31% of respondents expect to travel for work, down 5 percentage points on 2025, while, in Italy, business travel frequency remains largely unchanged compared to the previous year.

In Italy, 40% of respondents expect to take at least one business trip in 2026, 27% predicting between 1 and 4 business trips, 7% between 5 and 10, and 6% more than 10.

The leisure sector is also showing strong demand, with 93% of Italian respondents expecting to take at least one holiday trip in 2026. Comparison with 2025 also reveals a net increase in travel intentions, 17% saying they wish to increase their number of holidays, compared to 13% who plan to reduce them.

¹ ICCA GlobeWatch: Business Analytics – Country & City Rankings 2025

Bleisure data

In this context, the distinction between business travel and holidays is becoming increasingly blurred, with growing prevalence of ‘hybrid travel’ forms combining professional and personal reasons within the same trip.

Indeed, 49% of Italian travellers (exceeding the EU average of 44%) say they are interested in combining work and a holiday into the same trip, while 22% express a specific interest in ‘bleisure’ or, in other words, extending a business trip with a few days set aside for a holiday. The data shows an increasing overlap between the business and leisure segments, particularly significant when analysing city breaks and MICE trends.

Source: ENIT Research Department based on data from the EY Future Travel Behaviours 2026 – EY Observatory, March 2026.

Business travel in 2026

In the first six months of 2026, the number of foreign nationals travelling to Italy for work purposes rose by 12.6% compared with January–June 2025. Spending also rose by 11.4%, while the number of overnight stays fell by 6.4%.

This trend could be attributed, at least in part, to a higher proportion of same-day visitors, who spend money without staying overnight, and/or to the presence of neighbouring markets from where it is possible to reach Italy independently by car, thereby reducing the need to stay overnight.

Source: ENIT Research Office based on provisional Bank of Italy 2026 data.

City breaks, MICE and bleisure

Italian cities attract a significant proportion of business travel and visitors from abroad linked to the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) sector, segments traditionally involving shorter stays than traditional leisure tourism.

However, the shift towards the ‘bleisure’ model, combining business travel with leisure activities, offers an opportunity to extend the average length of stay.

With regard to the ranking of major cities, a model of how business travel and rapid mobility influence the length of stays is provided by Milan and Bergamo, whose relatively short average stay length is consistent with their role as business travel hubs and, in the case of Bergamo, also as a major international gateway.

• Milan, with 6 million visits and 13.6 million overnight stays and foreign spending totalling 4.0 billion euros, is projected to have an average stay length of approximately 2.3 nights in the forecasts for 2026. This relatively short average stay length is consistent with Milan’s role as a financial, economic and conference hub, also notable for a significant level of professional mobility. Significant growth is forecast for the 2026–2031 period, with a CAGR of +6.7% for visitor numbers, +5.7% for overnight stays and +6.6% for spending, annual rates exceeding the Italian average (+4.5%, +4.4% and +5.3%). This picture is consistent with the city’s role as a business and conference hub, where ‘bleisure’ could constitute an opportunity to extend visitors’ stays.
• Bergamo, with 700 thousand visits, 1.4 million overnight stays and €200 million in spending, has an average stay length of 2 nights, a figure forming part of a destination profile closely linked to air travel and featuring relatively short stays.

For the 2026–2031 period, an annual growth rate of +3.9% is projected for visitor numbers, +3.2% for overnight stays and +3.3% for expenditure. These figures indicate a more modest growth pattern compared to the other major cities considered. Its strategic location and ease of access may, however, be conducive to ‘bleisure’ behaviour, with some travellers arriving early or delaying their return in order to spend part of their stay exploring the destination.

• Rome and Venice both recorded 9.2 million visits, with 36.8 and 33.8 million overnight stays respectively, an average stay length of 4.0 and 3.7 nights and expenditure of 9.5 and 7.1 billion euros.

In these contexts, major events, conferences and institutional or trade fair-related visitor flows form part of a broader trend associated with an average stay length of over 3 days, potentially conducive to development of the bleisure sector. Rome is projected to see an annual growth rate between 2026 and 2031 of 5.4% for visitor numbers, 4.4% for overnight stays and 4.9% for spending, while Venice expects a CAGR of +6.1%, +4.4% and +5.5% respectively. Both cities therefore combine a longer average stay length with slightly lower growth rates in overnight stays than Milan, highlighting different profiles for destinations featuring short and extended stays in an urban setting.