Italy fact of the day

The Italian Tourist Board spends an astounding 98 percent of its budget on salaries, with basically nothing left for its actual job of tourism promotion.

The point of the article is that hardly anyone visits southern Italy any more, thus making it one of the world’s best arbitrage opportunities. It is one of my favorite regions.

By the way:

There are trains in the Mezzogiorno that travel at an average speed of 8.7 miles an hour.

And:

Metaponto, in the Basilicata region east of Naples, has a five-track, marble-clad rail station, paid for by $25 million in European Union funds. But the last train out is an 8:21 a.m. express to Rome. If you want to go anywhere else, you have to take a bus.

In the 1970s, Italy was the world’s #1 tourist destination but now it has slipped to number five.  There has never been a better time to go.

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