Combining art, history, and spirituality and leveraging the uniqueness of its territorial DNA, Umbria has realized it can go beyond slogans and turn cultural tourism into a concrete economic resource. Not only for operators but also for local communities.
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Umbria’s Primacy
Proven by a recent analysis by the Umbria Chamber of Commerce: according to the research, conducted by cross-referencing the Istat territorial classification (using 2019 data on the tourist category and the 2022 revision on tourist density) and the Ministry of Economy’s 2025 income tax declarations for the year 2024, the Region boasts the highest share of municipalities with a cultural vocation in Italy.
44.6% of Umbrian municipalities – 41 out of 92 – fall within the cultural tourism categories outlined by the National Institute of Statistics, evaluating territorial vocation, historical-artistic heritage, geographical and anthropic factors, tourist flows, and activities. In Italy, out of a total of 7,926 municipal entities, there are 1,026 (12.9%), with Tuscany in second place (119 out of 273, more than 43%), followed by Trentino Alto-Adige (103 out of 291, over 35%) and Marche (55 out of 228, about 24%).
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Income advantage of 8.9 percent
But there is another element to watch: precisely in those 41 municipalities that have made churches, museums, and archaeological landscapes an asset, the average taxable income exceeds by almost 2,000 euros that recorded in the remaining 51 (24,280 versus 22,288 euros, with a difference of 1,992 euros per taxpayer with taxable income, equal to 8.9%) and by 423 euros that of the region (23,857 euros). However, it remains below the national average (24,893 euros) and that of Central Italy (25,656 euros).
This result is driven by the economically more advanced cities with larger populations, but unfortunately still concerns few small villages and internal areas disadvantaged by weaker economies and demographics: excluding Perugia, Terni, and Foligno, the three main regional centers, the income advantage of the other 38 cultural municipalities drops from 8.9 to 4.2 percent.
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