01 — The geometry of scarcity
Thirteen towns on one corniche — the SS163, carved into the cliff in the 1800s — receive an estimated five million-plus day visitors a year: coaches from Naples and Rome, cruise shuttles from Sorrento, scooters, taxis. The road was the attraction; now it is the constraint. The premium towns ration hardest: alternating number plates on peak days, coach entry slots, parking priced like theatre tickets.
02 — The ceiling at Positano
Le Sirenuse, Il San Pietro, Villa Treville price from around €900 and test €2,000 in August — levels only Monaco, Capri and Lake Como can see. The ceiling is experiential, not demand-side: a fifty-room cliff hotel has a finite perfection budget. The flagships found the cap by testing August until pushback, then holding one rung below. The whole Italian coast reads itself against this shelf: when Positano moves, Praiano follows in weeks, Ravello in a season, Sorrento at a distance.
03 — The escape valve
One hour south, the crowds stop. Cilento — same cliffs, same sea, Paestum’s Greek temples, a national park — trades at roughly half the Amalfi level with July availability still findable in June. Every August headline about plate rationing sends a cohort looking for “the next Amalfi”, and Cilento is the honest answer. The desk treats it as the decade’s patient trade: same geology, waiting for the name.
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