From the mountains to the sea: what tourism for Calabria?

Abstract

Calabrian tourism is predominantly coastal, but this work aims to analyze, through a multidimensional analysis at municipal level, whether Calabrian tourism, especially on the supply side, diversifies between mountains, hills and sea. To describe the phenomenon, we chose to use the Istat classifications of Italian municipalities which are based on geo-morphological or urban settlement characteristics, measured for statistical purposes only. Municipalities are assigned a series of attributes, corresponding to some physical and/or anthropological characteristics, in particular the altimetric zones and coastal zones. The altimetric zones are homogeneous zones deriving from the aggregation of contiguous municipalities based on altimetric threshold values. They are divided into "mountain area", "hill area" and "plain area". Furthermore, to consider the moderating action of the sea on the climate, the first two altimetric zones were divided, respectively, into internal mountains and internal hills and, if these were bathed by the sea or close to it, coastal mountains and coastal hill. Coastal areas are defined based on the degree of proximity to the coast and are represented by municipalities located on the coast or having at least 50% of the surface at a distance from the sea less than 10 km, to which are added the enclaves (non-coastal municipalities surrounded by adjacent coastal municipalities). The rest of the municipalities are classified as non-coastal areas. Since the objective of the work is to analyze Calabrian tourism from the mountains to the sea, a new classification is proposed as a synthesis of the previous ones, i.e. mountain, hill and coast where the coastal areas represent the coast while the non-coastal areas are divided into mountains and hill. To describe the tourism potential municipal, 22 indicators have been identified at municipal level divided into 3 macro areas: tourist offer, flows and determinants, presence of farmhouses and bed and breakfasts, employment in the tourism sector. To have an even more complete picture of the phenomenon, a focus was also developed on the municipalities classified as "non-tourist" based on tourist density, i.e. those municipalities where there are no accommodation facilities and/or with zero tourist flows. For this purpose, big data deriving from Tripadvisor reviews were analyzed.