Very cunning. Fuel prices in Italy are set to break the €2 a litre barrier. Autostrada fuel pumps are likely to the first places motorists will come across €2 a litre prices.
Italy’s autostrada, the equivalent to the UK’s motorways, are the main roads millions of holiday bound Italians use to head off for other parts of Italy. Foreign tourists use these main roads to access Italy’s holiday zones too.
Just before the summer, fuel prices in Italy dropped a small amount and then they started creeping up a little. The drops may have helped convince some wavering Italians to opt for four wheels instead of taking the train or plane when heading off for their annual holidays.
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
Shortly, hoards of Italian, and foreign, tourists will begin their long drives home. All these lucky people will inevitably have to fill up their cars for the trip. They will have no alternative but to pay €2 a litre, otherwise, short of abandoning their cars, they won’t get home.
Raising fuel prices just before everyone returns home is an incredibly cunning move on behalf of big oil in Italy. Bumper profits will be assured! As will a mini-windfall for Italy’s cash strapped government which taxes a sizeable chunk of every litre of fuel sold.
It’s a little like selling someone a €1 air ticket to travel to Australia one way, and then saying, once they are in Australia and after having strongly hinted that the return ticket won’t cost much more, if you want to go home, It’ll cost you €1000. A neat trick which is bound to net a profit.
Could big oil in Italy be profiteering on the back of Italians returning home from their holidays? No, surely not.
