Hard times for hotels,

The global economic crisis has touched Florence, hitting the tourism
sector especially hard. Local hotel officials recently announced that, with a
15 percent drop in tourists, at least 3,000 hospitality workers will be out of
a job as of November 2008. ‘Personnel cuts are the only way we can reduce our
spending’, says Riccardo Zucconi, hotelier and vice president of the Florence
Confindustria. ‘Our city has been the worst hit by the tourism crisis in Italy; our hotels, on average,
are filled only 50 to 60 percent capacity.’