Italian hotels trying to salvage season with “bad weather” discounts

After a summer of record rains, floods, hailstorms and tornadoes, Italy’s exasperated hotel industry is seeking to claw back exasperated customers by offering discounts for bad weather.

The innovative plan follows a disastrous season at northern Italian resorts, which saw more days of rain than sun in July and all but wiped out August.

On Thursday, the Veneto region was the latest victim as violent storms flared, with one house bursting into flames after a lightning strike.

To try and tempt back wet and bedraggled customers, hotels across Lignano Sabbiadoro in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region are offering fifty per cent off room rates in September on any day it rains if customers book in for three days.

“We are trying to make up for an unlucky season,” Luigi Sutto, manager of the Athena hotel told Italian daily La Stampa. “In the absence of any alternative to offer people who arrive and find water, we are focusing on a delicate argument: the wallet.”

Elsewhere in northern Italy, the river Seveso in Milan has repeatedly burst its banks over the summer, leaving swathes of the city under water. In Liguria, tourists took cover from tornadoes off the coast.

On August 15, a day when Italians traditionally enjoy midsummer picnics, snowploughs were needed in the Bergamo area to clear the streets of piles of hailstones.

Four people were killed this month when a flash flood swept participants at a village festival near Venice into a river. More than 20 others were injured as the sudden torrent swept away cars and kiosks.

At Jesolo in the Veneto region, hoteliers have responded to the freak weather by offering insurance against downpours. “Those who book online are often unable to cancel, so instead you can pay a euro extra and insure yourself against bad weather,” said Michele Bergamo, manager of the OroBeach and Greenbeach lidos.

At the Tuscan resort of Forte dei Marmi, the local mayor unsuccessfully appealed to the Italian government to let children take September off school to allow them to try and get back some of the sunny days they lost at the beach.

The Villa d’Alassio hotel in Lazio in central Italy has meanwhile offered 20 per cent off every day of rain, while in Versilia in Tuscany, the Savoy Hotel opted for ten per cent.

“It’s an incentive for the Italians who come here just to be by the sea,” said manager Iacopo Ciardella. “Foreigners are less worried, if it’s bad weather they don’t lose heart but rent a car and take advantage by visiting a town or a museum. The Uffizi Galleries are always beautiful, whether it rains or not.”

But one hotelier said there was no point offering discounts or insurance or incentives. “On the second day of rain my clients go home because there is nothing to do,” said Mattia Detoni at the Olivo di Arco hotel on Lake Garda.

“The problem isn’t the price, I could even charge them 20 euros a night. But for what? To stay closed in their rooms?”