Culture industry and Covid-19

Read the key messages from the study and download the PDF for all the insights.

• The cultural industry is a heterogeneous and transversal sector, whose economic value is quite complex to determine.
• At European level, the cultural and creative industries contribute more than 5% to GDP. In Italy this same value rises to more than 6%.
• Although Italy’s cultural heritage is vast and undisputed, with 55 UNESCO sites, it is nevertheless rather under-exploited, with numbers of visitors far below those registered by international cultural attractions.
• The film industry also has a particularly important role, as a symbol of excellence in the world and one of the highest multiplicative effects: every €1 of additional demand for audiovisual services generates €2 in the rest of the economy.
• The digital revolution that is transforming the film industry with the dizzying increase in consumption on the new online platforms, is slow to spread to the more traditional use of cultural goods.
• The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed and amplified the fragility of cultural industries. Over 90% of the world’s museums have had a period of inactivity; the global film industry lost about US$10 billion in the first few months of the year.
• In Italy, museums have lost about €80 million; the cinema has lost almost €120 million and musical events €350 million.
• On the contrary, digital channels remained operational and registered a true boom in subscriptions. In Italy in the first weeks of lockdown the audience grew more than 100%.
• But even the more traditional segments of the cultural industry have exploited the potential offered by digital to keep the relationship with the users of cultural products alive.
• The crisis caused by Covid-19 could be an opportunity to carry out the process of digitalisation of the sector that was struggling to take hold and which could enable the sector to respond to the need for more flexible and personalised ways of using it.