by Alessandra Cardone

ROME, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Foreign tourists in Italy grew both in number and spending in the second quarter of the year compared to the same period of 2017, the Bank of Italy revealed on Tuesday.

More than 102 million overnight stays were registered between April and June against 98.5 million in the second quarter of last year, the data showed.

For the first semester, the registered overnight stays were 157.9 million in 2018 against 153.7 million in 2017.

Spending by foreign tourists in Italy in the second quarter rose by 5.9 percent to 11.4 billion euros (13.2 billion U.S. dollars) from 10.7 billion in the same period of 2017, the Bank of Italy also said.

In the same span, Italian tourists traveling abroad boosted their spending by 2.4 percent to 6.06 billion euros from 5.92 billion euros.

These statistics confirmed the positive trend that has been marking Italy's tourism flows lately.

Some 90.6 million foreign travelers were registered in Italy in 2017 (85.5 millions in 2016), with about 368 million overnight stays, according to a report released by Italian International Center for Studies on Tourism Economics (CISET) in spring.

The CISET report was also based on statistics provided by the Bank of Italy.

Foreign visitors spent 39.2 billion euros in the country against 36.3 billion in 2016 (7.7 percent rise), which made 2.3 percent of Italy's gross domestic product (GDP), the report also showed.

Still in 2017, Italian tourists abroad were 64.5 millions, and spent 24.5 billion euros, with an 8.9 percent spending rise compared to the previous year.

In a latest projection released in July together with the country's central bank, CISET forecast the number of foreign tourists in Italy would increase by 4.7 percent this year.