Seasonal Spatial Price Indices: A Case Study of Italian Accommodations

The diffusion of e-tourism and online booking platforms has profoundly transformed accommodation markets, generating detailed information on prices, quality, and consumer behaviour. This work analyses spatial price differentials and seasonal pricing dynamics in the accommodation markets of major Italian cities using web-scraped data. The empirical analysis is based on quarterly observations for 2024 covering 51,413 accommodation structures. To control for differences in accommodation characteristics and reputation attributes, the study employs a hedonic seasonal country–product–dummy model and an extended specification with city–seasonality interaction. The results reveal substantial heterogeneity in both spatial price levels and seasonal patterns across cities, underscoring the importance of accounting for destination-specific seasonal effects.