Lake Garda Tourism in 2000: Trends and War’s Impact on Visitors

Tourism Trends on Lake Garda in 2000

The tourism activity on Lake Garda remains essentially positive, even though it is struggling to keep pace with the results achieved in the first six months of last year. “1999 was a record year, difficult to match,” states the president of the Riviera degli Olivi tourism promotion company.

“There are mainly two reasons,” – explains Enrico Merenda – “that contributed to reaching record figures in both arrivals and days of stay during the last season: a season that started significantly early with Easter holidays falling in March, followed by long weekends from religious holidays occurring sequentially throughout May. But the strong increase in tourism can be attributed,” – says the president – “to the Balkans war, with many tourists opting for the security provided by Lake Garda rather than the Adriatic zones, which were too close to military operations.”

Effects of the War and Recent Data

With normality returning, a decline was therefore predictable, although it remains relatively contained. From the first data processed by the Statistics Office of the Promotion Agency— pertaining to the first six months of 2000 — it appears, at least for the Upper Garda veronese (Malcesine, Brenzone, Torri, and Garda), a substantial stability in the number of arrivals.