Italy is becoming the country of nature walks

In 2023, the number of people who undertook a Camino in Italy exceeded 100,000 for the first time.The data comes from the dossier "Italy Country of Cammini”, presented during the annual fair Do the right thing, organized by the non-profit organization Terre di mezzo in Milan, where the event took place between Friday 22nd and Sunday 24th March.The dossier was developed by collecting the responses of 113 Cammini managers who issue credentials - fate of walkers' passports which certify the passage from a specific place during the Itinerary -, or testimonium – documents certifying completion of a Way.The scenario drawn by the report is that of a sharply increasing phenomenon, which confirms the growth trend in recent years recording an increase not only in the number of people involved, but also in the number of structured Paths.

The dossier Italy Country of Cammini is divided into three different parts:the first is dedicated to the Walks, the second is reserved for walkers and the last focuses on the Camino de Santiago, which, being the most popular itinerary on the entire continent, serves as a yardstick.For the first part, 138 Cammini managers were contacted and 113 responses were received.Of these, 104 Streets provided credentials, and 86 delivered testimonium, and 92 Paths that provided credentials and 66 Paths that delivered contributed respectively to the count testimonium.In total, 101,419 credentials were delivered in 2023 and 57,600 testimonium, respectively approximately 25% and over 50% more than in 2022.The numbers relating to the people who undertake itineraries in Italy and the structured paths that provide and count credentials and testimonium have been on the rise for years:since 2017, the year in which data counting began, the number of documents delivered has in fact recorded an increase of more than five times the starting figure, and if in the first year there were only 6 structured routes that provided credentials and 3 that delivered testimonium, in 2023 these numbers have grown by over 15 times.Among the routes that have seen an increase in travel, the Cammino di Oropa, the Materano, the San Benedetto, the San Jacopo in Tuscany, the Mining Route of Santa Barbara in Sardinia, the Vie del Viandante, and the Vie Francigene of Sicily, while the Via Francigena remained stable, and the Via degli Dei was in decline.

As far as walkers are concerned, the data is based on a online questionnaire launched by Terre di mezzo, which collected 2,427 responses.From what emerges from them, the majority of walkers in 2023 appear female, and the proportion recorded in 2018, in which 57% of walkers were male, is thus reversed.In total, 27% of walkers who took part in the questionnaire walked two Walks in 2023, while 24% walked three or more than three;furthermore, 41% say they spend your holidays mainly on the Camino, so much so that 12% say they have walked between 50 and 100 days in the last year, and 9% say they have walked for more than 100 days.TO travel alone they are only 31% of people, while among the reasons that push them to undertake an Itinerary, 32% seem to choose a Path to religious or spiritual reasons, while the rest of the people are moved by other motivations:“feel good, knowing the territories, living in the midst of nature, doing physical activity or for cultural reasons".In general in Italy the walking season is going from April to October, with peaks in June and July, and the journey is completed in 63% of cases.

The data returned from the dossier Italy Country of Cammini record a considerable increase, especially if we consider their partiality:in fact, not all Paths are structured enough to count the people who undertake them and some even it provides neither credentials nor testimonium.According to Terre di mezzo, in 2023, the number of walkers in Italy should have been approximately 148,000 people, which "together have generated an impact of at least 1 million 350 thousand overnight stays";furthermore, just under half of walkers would have spent over 40 euros per day sleeping in most cases in an apartment or hostel, and only in 4% of cases in a tent.These data are even more remarkable if you look at the Camino de Santiago, which in 2023 with its 446,042 walkers recorded an increase in pilgrims of 2% compared to 2022, a far smaller increase than that experienced by the Italian itineraries.

[by Dario Lucisano]