Italy's coronavirus cases down as country pins hopes on summer tourists

Italy recorded 518 new cases of COVID-19, but total active infections decreased by 1,453 to 36,976, officials said Friday, reported Xinhua.

This came two days after people in Italy were once more free to travel within their own country from June 3.

Friday's tally of new cases was up from 177 on Thursday, 321 on Wednesday, 318 on Tuesday, and 178 on Monday, the Civil Protection Department said.

Another 1,886 COVID-19 patients have recovered, bringing the total to 163,781, while a further 85 patients have died, bringing the death toll in the country since the pandemic began to 33,774.

The overall number of cases combining infections, fatalities, and recoveries rose to 234,531 cases over the past 24 hours.

FM ON MISSION TO WOO TOURISTS

Also on Friday, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio explained in a video posted on Facebook that Germany has said it will allow its citizens to visit Italy from June 15 onwards.

"This is an important day for tourist flows to Italy because after meeting with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, we agreed that starting on June 15, Germany will open to the possibility of German tourists coming to Italy," said Di Maio, speaking from the Italian embassy in Berlin.

"This is my first foreign mission (since the pandemic began)," Di Maio said, adding that he will travel to Slovenia and Greece to press for those countries to also relax restrictions on travel to Italy.

"We reopened to European countries on June 3 and we expect reciprocity, based of course on the timing of each country," the Italian foreign minister continued.

Di Maio added that Switzerland contacted him Friday to tell him it will also allow travel to Italy beginning on June 15.

"The work we are doing is crucial to helping our tourism industry, which represents approximately 15 percent of our national gross domestic product (GDP)," he said.

The tourist season in Italy usually begins in March, but according to the Italian Federation of Hotel and Tourism Associations (Federalberghi), the spring season this year was a complete bust.

"In May, for the third consecutive month, the business has de facto ground to a halt, putting the nail in the coffin of the spring season, which has been erased from the calendar this year," Federalberghi President Bernabo Bocca said in a statement Friday.

He added that 118,000 seasonal hotel jobs were lost in May and that the summer season is also at risk.

"We are apprehensive over the fate of our businesses," Bocca said, adding that unless the market picks up, "the first victims will be some 500,000 seasonal workers who will not be hired back, as well as their families."

RETAIL DOWN, E-COMMERCE UP DURING LOCKDOWN

April retail sales volume was down by 11.4 percent compared to March, and by 28.1 percent compared to April 2019, according to estimates by ISTAT national statistics Institute out Friday.

In particular, non-food goods dropped by 24 percent in April compared to March because shops had to close due to the COVID-19 health emergency.

On an annual basis, the hardest-hit retail sectors were shoes, leather and travel goods (minus 90.6 percent), furniture and textiles (minus 83.6 percent), clothing (minus 83.4 percent), and toys and sporting goods (minus 82.5 percent).

The only kind of retail that posted an increase in April compared to March was e-commerce, which rose by 27.1 percent, according to ISTAT.

In another report published Friday, ISTAT said that according to its latest survey, Italians spent more time cooking, sleeping, and being with their children during the lockdown than they did before.

One-third of respondents said they woke up later than they used to under pre-emergency circumstances, while 67.2 percent said they spent more time with their children and 63.6 percent said they spent more time cooking.

According to the ISTAT survey, 93.6 percent of respondents said they spent their free time watching TV, while 62.9 percent said they called or video-chatted with relatives and 50 percent said they spent time communicating with friends.