The lake, king of Italian tourism
According to data from the Ministry of Tourism, lake stays are the new trend for foreigners choosing Made in Italy for their holidays
Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore, above all. But also the Hollywood-like Lake Como, Lake Iseo, the Dolomitic Lake Braies and the iconic — or rather Instagrammable, given the queue of tourists waiting to photograph it — Blue Lake in Cervinia. The bodies of water of Northern Italy are a resource not only natural but also economic. According to the Ministry of Tourism, Italian lakes are one of the best-performing tourism products in terms of OTA (online travel agency) saturation: 54% of remote bookings are for lake areas, compared with only 51% for beach and spa areas. A trend confirmed by Faita Federcamping too, with significant growth in camping as a lodging choice among foreign tourists, as well as by high-end Alpine destinations sold out both in summer and in winter.
Lake Garda alone — understood as an interregional system encompassing territories in Veneto, Lombardy and Trentino — nearly reached 28 million arrivals in 2025, of which over 6.3 million were German tourists in the Veneto area alone.
Citing Istat data, the Ministry of Tourism also underlines that in lake municipalities the share of international arrivals reaches 82.2%, a sign of an identifiably Italian product that is particularly competitive in global tourism markets.
