Italy's tourism-culture model criticized as 'touristification' drains real wealth

Italy's cultural sector is being transformed into a product for tourism, a process the author calls 'touristification.' This does not merely commodify culture but strips the country of its ability to convert visibility into autonomous real wealth. The article argues that Italy has favored exporting producers over products—in fashion, technology, engineering, and now culture. Using a real estate example, it shows how property owners in tourist-heavy cities either monetize assets temporarily or sell to international buyers, funneling wealth abroad. The author links this to brain drain: in 2020 alone, 23,000 graduates aged 25–39 emigrated, representing a loss of nearly 9 per thousand in that age group. These emigrants could have contributed to creating contemporary Italian culture and real economy. The piece concludes that investing in Italy is now seen as a 'complement of place' rather than 'complement of purpose,' reducing the nation to an extractor of commodities that are valorized elsewhere.