Not only beaches, in Sardinia vacations are increasingly told at the table as well. The regional department’s final report on 2025 tourism, based on Mastercard data on visitors’ expenditures, paints a clear picture: restaurants have become the most substantial line item in what visitors spend when choosing the island as their holiday destination, even surpassing accommodation. This signals that gastronomy is no longer merely an add-on to the stay but one of the main reasons that drive tourists to choose Sardinia.
What the numbers say
According to the analysis, dining and food service in Sardinia accounts for about one fifth of the island’s total tourist expenditure, ranking ahead of supermarkets and grocery stores, hotels and clothing shops. The sector grew by almost a fifth compared with 2024, continuing a trend already underway the previous year with an even more pronounced rise. Not only is the core restaurant business growing: bars, wine shops, and shops specializing in wine and spirits also report double-digit increases in spending.
Other segments of tourist commerce also show positive signals, from shopping to apparel to hotel hospitality, but none rises as much as the restaurant sector, which remains the true engine of the island’s tourism economy.
Sardinian cuisine as a calling card
Behind these numbers lies a shift in how people perceive a Sardinian vacation. More and more visitors come not only for the sea or landscapes, but also to taste its specialties such as culurgiones, bottarga, pane carasau, and the island’s wines, turning a meal into an essential stop in the travel experience. Industry associations in the sector read these figures as confirmation of a sustained effort invested daily in product quality, staff training, and the promotion of local ingredients.
Moreover, Sardinia is renowned for its recipes, often handed down from generation to generation: from the fregula that carries the sea scent to the cheeses that tell of the inland pastures. Each dish carries the story of a land split between coast and mountains, between pastoralism and fishing, and this very variety is what makes it so fascinating. It is no coincidence that an increasing number of travel itineraries are built around gastronomic stops, from markets in small villages to the cellars that open their doors for tastings among the vineyards.
For those organizing a trip to Sardinia, this translates into an increasingly wide choice of restaurants, agritourismi and wineries ready to tell the territory through its flavors, providing another reason, if one was needed, to plan the next holiday while thinking about what to order at the table.
However, there are challenges to address to consolidate this growth. Among the priorities cited by sector operators are the need to train new skilled personnel, counter the labor shortage that affects many tourist destinations, destagionalize flows so as not to concentrate everything in the summer months, and improve connections to the island to make it more accessible and competitive.
