FriuliVillas

Where tourists go in Friuli: nights, seasons and foreign visitors, town by town

In 2025 Friuli Venezia Giulia counted 11,028,200 tourist nights, a third of them in Lignano. If you are weighing up a home to let while you are away, though, the question that matters is another one: in how many months of the year do the visitors come?

Published 22 October 2026

A handful of towns do most of the work

Tourism in Friuli clusters in a few places. In 2025 Lignano Sabbiadoro recorded 3,702,600 nights, Trieste 1,665,300 and Grado 1,499,900; after that the list falls away quickly.

#MunicipalityZoneTourist nights (2025)
1Lignano SabbiadoroLignano, Latisana and Marano3,702,600
2TriesteTrieste and the Karst1,665,300
3GradoGrado and Aquileia1,499,900
4UdineUdine and its ring of towns467,400
5MonfalconeMonfalcone and the Bisiacaria247,600
6TarvisioTarvisio, Canal del Ferro and Val Resia234,500
7Duino AurisinaTrieste and the Karst198,500
8PordenonePordenone and the western plain144,900
9AquileiaGrado and Aquileia138,500
10GoriziaCollio, Gorizia and the Isonzo125,500
11SappadaCarnia and Sappada118,500
12AvianoThe Pordenone foothills and Piancavallo116,200
13San Dorligo della ValleTrieste and the Karst109,100
14Forni AvoltriCarnia and Sappada101,700
15MuggiaTrieste and the Karst100,200

Per resident, the figures show how far a place lives on visitors. On the coast Lignano has 537.5 nights per inhabitant and Grado 199.1; in the mountains Sappada reaches 89.7 and Tarvisio 60.1; Udine stops at 4.8. Where the ratio is high the guests are there, but so is the competition: the 2011 census found 88% of Lignano's dwellings without a resident, second homes included.

Tourist nights per resident0.0 – 0.40.4 – 1.41.4 – 2.42.4 – 7.5≥ 7.5Each dot is a town hall

The darkest dots are the towns with most nights per inhabitant: Lignano and Grado on the coast, then a string of mountain villages, from Forni Avoltri and Barcis to Sappada, Ravascletto and Sauris.

Three months or the whole year

For a landlord, timing is everything. Over 2023–2025 Lignano put 72% of its nights into June, July and August, Grado 66%: outside those three months there is little left. Trieste puts 33% into the summer and clears 5% of the year in 11 months out of 12; in 2025 it had 27% more nights than in 2023. Udine and Pordenone, cities of business and passing trade, have a flat flow, with no month standing out.

25 towns live mainly on summer, with over 55% of nights between June and August; Lignano, Grado, Aquileia, Duino Aurisina and Sauris are among them.

Lignano SabbiadoroGradoTriesteUdineTarvisioSappada
Tourist nights (2025)3,702,6001,499,9001,665,300467,400234,500118,500
Nights in summer72%66%33%30%38%49%
Nights in winter3%3%24%27%37%40%
Foreign tourists66%80%59%48%43%13%

Mountain towns that work twice a year

13 towns have both a summer and a winter season, all of them in the mountains or at their foot. Among them are Tarvisio (38% of nights in summer, 37% in winter), Sappada (49% and 40%), Forni di Sopra (45% and 39%), Arta Terme, Ravascletto, Forni Avoltri, Pontebba, Paluzza, and Aviano with the Piancavallo ski area (35% and 45%). The yardstick is ours: at least 30% of nights in June–August, at least 25% in December–March, and a few dead months in between.

Two towns live almost entirely on snow: Sutrio, below Monte Zoncolan, with 60% of its nights between December and March, and Chiusaforte, home of Sella Nevea, with 71%.

Use the house for a few weeks, let it for the rest, and you get to choose which season to keep.

Foreigners on the coast, Italians in Carnia

In 2025 foreign visitors spent 58.9% of the region's tourist nights, and Austrians and Germans alone made up 51% of those. The average hides two different worlds. On the coast foreigners are the majority: 80% in Grado, 77% in Aquileia, 75% in Duino Aurisina, 66% in Lignano, 59% in Trieste. In Carnia and Sappada it is the other way round: 13% in Sappada, 18% in Sauris, 24% in Forni di Sopra.

Length of stay differs as well: 4.6 nights on average in Lignano and 4.4 in Grado, 2.5 in Trieste, 2.0 in Udine. Seaside stays run longer and city breaks last a couple of nights, so cleaning and fresh linen weigh differently on the sums.

Online bookings have doubled; full houses have not

Nights booked in Friuli Venezia Giulia through Airbnb, Booking, Expedia and TripAdvisor rose from 920,256 in 2019 to 1,863,177 in 2025: 2.02 times as many, against 1.82 for Italy as a whole and 2.55 in the city of Trieste. These are Eurostat's experimental statistics, and they partly overlap the official counts.

Supply has grown as well. On our estimates from PromoTurismoFVG figures, a bed in a registered holiday flat is occupied for about 15 nights a year around Lignano, 34 around Grado and 54 around Trieste. The averages include homes that are hardly ever let, but they show how crowded the field is. For a particular home, use the short-let calculator; the rules are in short-term letting in 2026.

What these numbers leave out

  • They are registered nights in the regional WebTur system; undeclared lets do not show up.
  • From 2025 the national statistics office counts other private lodgings among rented accommodation, which breaks the series: growth outside hotels needs reading with care.
  • In 59 towns with fewer than a thousand nights a year, the percentages jump around from one year to the next.
  • Nationality by town is not published: the open data only separate Italians from foreigners, and the breakdown by country is regional.
  • Summer and winter shares cover 2023–2025; foreign share, nights per resident and length of stay are 2025 figures.

Questions

Which are the most popular tourist towns in Friuli Venezia Giulia?

By tourist nights in 2025: Lignano Sabbiadoro (3,702,600), Trieste (1,665,300) and Grado (1,499,900). Relative to population, Lignano Sabbiadoro comes first.

How long is the season in Lignano?

Effectively three months: 72% of nights fall between June and August, and only 5 months take more than 5% of the year.

Where in Friuli can you let a holiday home all year round?

In Trieste, where 11 months out of 12 take more than 5% of the nights, and on a smaller scale in Udine and Pordenone. In the mountains, Tarvisio, Sappada and Forni di Sopra have two seasons.

Sources and method

Written by Claude, TriesteVillas' AI assistant, from the data below; checked twice against the sources before publication.

The figures on this page come from:

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