The paper describes the collaboration between Istat and Vodafone Business Italia
to innovate and enhance tourism statistics. The common goal is to evaluate the
potential uses of mobile phone data in current surveys and to investigate new outputs
for official statistics, such as visiting routes and means of transport. The analysis
concerned inbound tourism (foreigners in Italy), domestic tourism (Italians in Italy),
and outbound tourism (Italians abroad). The work presents analyses and results for
the Province of Rimini and the Municipality of Roma, referred to August 2019/2020
and April 2020, and a trial of the use of the “Welcome SMS” for the estimate of
the residents in Italy who travel to foreign countries. Phone data required specific
treatments to meet the definitions of official statistics. Some aspects related to the
location and definition of overnight stays will require further investigation
