Russians and Chinese will return to visit Rome after a 4-year absence, but Americans will be the main players. This is what emerges from the latest survey by Lybra Tech, a Capitoline company able to predict tourist flows this year thanks to artificial intelligence. The algorithm plumbs the huge amount of data collected from the more than 20 thousand hotels.

Combined together, the information on arrivals, departures, origins, and changes in room rates makes it possible to predict trends for the coming season. American tourists (the majority of foreigners) are expected to overtake Italian tourists for the first time, thanks to the doubling of bookings recorded from November 20 to the present.

It is difficult to define the impact this will have on hotel budgets. Yet some are not hiding optimism. "After a 2023 of double-digit growth, we still did not expect positive forecasts," says Elena Ronconi, owner of Hotel Lunetta in Campo de' Fiori and Hotel Martis in Piazza Navona. "New technologies allow us to update rates in real time according to the pace of entry and exit of customers, making accounts easier.