Italy’s beaches are world famous for their beauty and ever since the tourism boom in the fifties, business-minded Italians have been taking advantage of that. With beach clubs becoming increasingly expensive and public beaches ever more rare, beach picnics, which have been a tradition for decades, might go extinct.
Beach concessions in Italy have been the subject of controversy recently. Many family businesses in coastal towns have handed down their concession from generation to generation and the European Commission says the process lacks transparency and breaches competition rules. By early 2025, despite efforts from Giorgia Meloni’s government to soften the Commission’s opinion on the regulation, Italy’s beach concession policy will have to concede.
“Competition would advantage everybody, particularly in this area where we’re not talking about private properties, but about public domain that these businesses are getting almost for free,” economist Pietro Paganini told Euronews.
According to data provided by Meloni’s report, around 33% of Italy’s 11,000 kilometre-long coastline is currently under concession. However, this represents a much bigger part of the coastline that is actually exploitable, given the fact that many places are too rugged to be actively used by anyone. Organisation Mare Libero has therefore been asking that at least 50% of Italy’s useable beaches should once again become fully public and free for anyone to enjoy.
Uma outra pesquisa publicada em 2020 pelo Instituto Nacional de Estatística da Itália registrou que 41,9% dos cidadãos italianos afirmaram não ter condições de arcar com os custos de uma semana de férias na praia. Os ricos, por sua vez, não estão reclamando.
— Pensar a História (@historia_pensar) June 4, 2024
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The fact that more and more beaches are exploited by beach concessions also means that the Italian tradition of seaside picnics is slowly but surely coming to an end. Families and friends have been gathering on the beaches during summertime, bringing their own furniture, drinks and food, sometimes half a kitchen worth of it for decades.
However, free beach space has become a rarity and beach concession owners now often try to prohibit anyone from bringing their own drinks and food. According to the Italian newspaper Courier del Mezzogiorno, there is talk of a real “battle” between beach concession owners and beachgoers. The region of Puglia recently even had to state that “there is no obligation to use the refreshment point of the bathing establishment and there is no prohibition on the introduction of food and drinks from outside, as long as they are in appropriate sizes and methods in a public setting”.
Sadly, the fact that precise information about what is appropriate and what is not is lacking, making it easier for beach concessions to prohibit people from gathering for a traditional beach picnic and thus those with a smaller budget are having a hard time enjoying the beach as they used to.
