EVERY year in Italy, during the sultry weeks straddling Ferragosto – the sacrosanct mid-August national holiday – cities empty as Italians head en masse to beaches and mountain resorts.
But this summer, the usual idyll was sullied in the minds of many Italians shocked by how expensive a day at the seaside has become.
“I don’t understand why I have to pay €50 a day for a beach umbrella and two lounge chairs,” said Michelle Guerra, who was instead sitting on a towel at one of the few free beaches in Santa Marinella, a resort town 65km north of Rome.
“Salaries have been frozen for years, but everything has become so much more expensive.”
Stagnant wages have long been a problem in Italy. Most times people grumble and move on, but every so often, the issue sparks a flare of national indignation.
This summer, that anger centred on the cost of an umbrella and two lounge chairs at Italian beach clubs, sapping some of the fun from August getaways that many Italians see as a birthright.
“Beach umbrellas cost their weight in gold and the beaches are emptying,” read one front-page headline in La Stampa. Another, in Libero, blared: “The expensive holidays that ruin Italians’ dreams”.
The coastline in Italy is owned by the state and public access to beaches is guaranteed. But the government leases portions of it to more than 7,000 mostly family-run beach clubs.
The clubs charge for use of their facilities, which can include not only chairs and umbrellas, but also showers, changing rooms, parking and, at the higher end, swimming pools.
Once summer arrives, rows of matching umbrellas dot the beaches, with their colours and patterns shifting to mark the boundary between clubs.
This year, daily prices ran from about €22 to well above €110. For a family, securing a spot on the sand can quickly add up.
On the low end, in Rimini on the Adriatic Riviera, a week at a beach club for a family of four cost around €360 for seats near the water, slightly less in rows behind. That does not factor in food, transport or accommodation.
In Forte dei Marmi, an upscale Tuscan town, a similar set-up could cost three times as much.
Associations representing beach clubs insist it is unfair to blame them. They, too, face soaring costs, and argue that Italians’ frustrations stem less from greedy operators than from stagnant wages.
“The problem is the crisis of the middle class, the crisis of household incomes, which should be supported,” said Antonio Capacchione, president of the Sindacato Italiano Balneari.
According to national statistics agency Istat, the purchasing power of contractual wages is now 9% below 2021 levels. Italian salaries lag the European Union average and Italy is one of the few EU countries without a minimum wage.
As tempers rose with the temperatures, the price of beach umbrellas suddenly became political.
Consumer groups and opposition parties seized on figures showing a 15% drop in beach attendance in July compared with the same month last year.
Codacons, a consumer watchdog, said average prices for umbrellas and chairs had jumped by some 33% since pre-Covid years, based on their analysis of Istat data.
They argued that costs had reached breaking point for families, while opposition politicians accused the centre-right government of failing to support workers.
The government countered with statistics showing that overall tourism was up 7.7% in 2024.
A spokesman for tourism minister Daniela Santanche said she would not weigh in on the controversy, insisting prices were not her remit.
Some blamed the weather rather than politics. July was unusually cool and windy, sandwiched between suffocating heatwaves in June and August, said Gabriele Greco, CEO of a beach club booking platform.
Others suggested media exaggeration.
“You don’t see these kinds of polemics when it comes to hotels,” argued Fabrizio Licordari, president of Assobalneari Italia, who said beach clubs had become scapegoats for Italy’s deeper household crisis.
In Santa Marinella, the going daily rate at the handful of clubs occupying the sandiest strip is between €45 and €60 for umbrella and chairs.
The area had a glamorous turn in the 1950s when film stars visited Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini at their villa. Today it remains popular, in part because the beach is just minutes from the train station.
La Perla del Tirreno, a carefully managed club, still draws regulars.
Its manager, Leila Fares, said Santa Marinella’s proximity to Rome made it “expensive, in every respect”, but clients kept coming. The only slow days were when trains went on strike.
At another club nearby, a “no vacancy” sign was posted in four languages on a sunny afternoon.
In some ways, the debate is academic. The clubs themselves may be on borrowed time.
A 2006 EU law bans automatic renewal of public asset contracts, requiring open auctions instead.
Beach club owners have fought back for years, arguing they would never be repaid for decades of investment – and would lose their livelihoods.
Italy has repeatedly dragged its feet, despite rebukes from Brussels.
Groups such as Mare Libero (Free Sea), which campaigns for more public beaches, argue that opening up access would naturally lower costs, forcing clubs to compete.
In Santa Marinella, visitor Maria Cecchelin said she often comes to the seaside from her nearby town but never rents chairs.
“It would quickly break our family budget,” she said. Instead, she and her friends set up foldable chairs on a concrete breakwater.
“Prices are absurd now,” she admitted, before softening her view.
From her raised platform, cooled by a steady breeze, she gestured at the sea.
“We like this place a lot,” she said with a smile. — ©2025 The New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times
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