No. 4 (2022)

Gastronomy tourism is argued to enhance sustainable development. Exploiting the potential of local food (and food cultures) can generate economic, social, and cultural benefits, especially in rural areas and among local food and/or wine producer. Scholarly research tends to focus more on sustainable agricultural practices, and few considerations have been made about the tourist experience. The present study tries to fill this gap. It identifies sustainable issues that can drive travellers’ decisions within the context of gastronomy tourism — specifically those choices related to visits to producers, food and wine tours, and events. A nationwide survey was purposely chosen. Findings clearly show that environmental, social, and cultural issues are highly considered and perceived as equally important when choosing the gastronomic experience. Some suggestions can be made to support suppliers in developing sustainable proposals: being sustainable in each detail, engaging the tourists and making them more aware of the issue.

The contribution intends to analyse the role of the High Lands in envisaging a potential change of course with respect to the relationship between urban areas and mountain territories, especially in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic that has profoundly affected these lands and their communities. The paper illustrates an operational project launched in the context of the Bergamo-Brescia Italian Capital of Culture 2023 event, entitled Terre Alte Experience, which is strongly focused on the participation of local communities and the use of digital systems (such as mapping and video filming) for the activation of new development strategies oriented towards responsible and sustainable tourism. For this reason, the pandemic crisis has shown the potential of the High Lands in responding to a growing desire for recreational practices of proximity, in the open air and in suggestive environmental and landscape contexts, proposing itself both as an elective place for a new living and as a laboratory of innovation and creativity, capable of relaunching the tourist experience aimed at recovering the culture and knowledge of local communities.

The present work aims at offering evidence on the impact of anti-COVID government actions on the volume of tourism. Using monthly Eurostat data on 27 European countries, it investigates the relation between the adoption of governmental measures, and tourism flows. The stringency index and the economic support index, measured through the indexes developed by the Oxford University team led by the Blavatnik School of Government, are the governmental measures against the pandemic used as explanatory variables of the tourism flows. The latter have been measured by some proxies: the nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments divided the country population; the arrivals at touristic accommodation establishment divided the country population; the net occupancy rate of bed-places and bedrooms in hotels and similar accommodation; Short stay accommodation via collaborative economy). An econometric analysis has been performed through the estimation of panel data models, controlling, given the heterogeneity of the sample, for heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation within panels. The present research employs an original dataset, whose information on tourism flows and macroeconomic control variables has been retrieved within the database Eurostat that, considering monthly data, from March 2020 to June 2022, summarises the course of the pandemic. This circumstance allows to outline the different responses from the countries in the sample and can be monitored in the next future. Why is this research question worthwhile answering? If it is true that the COVID-19 pandemic has lost its character of novelty, because of the virus various mutations, the pandemic declaration is still effective (https://www.who.int/philippines/news/detail/11- 03-2022-opinion-is-the-pandemic-ending-soon, last access 21st of July 2022), and therefore the question concerning the type and the intensity of the governmental actions is yet an open issue and may impact on tourism flows in the future.

This paper proposes a study on the role of Destination Management and postpandemic Destination Design. It highlights the importance of promoting the rebirth of villages, of little-known itineraries, of protected areas and peripheral areas that were mostly stormed by tourists in the period of the pandemic. The case study outlines those that are first and foremost the most appropriate forms of tourism and the most popular attractions in relation to certain protected areas such as the Pollino National Park and the National Park of the Appennino Lucano Val D'Agri and any future possibilities. The analysis shows that the most requested activities in the protected areas covered by the case study are those related to outdoor attractions. The future
road should be, on the part of the territories, operators and public administrations move towards a Governance and a Destination Management able to give rise to the territorial tourist activities even more through the promotion.

The crisis in the tourism sector due to the covid-19 pandemic and its consequences, has brought significant changes in the sector, also in Italy. In this context, an important role is played by environmental certifications, through which enterprises, destinations and public administrations express and affirm their environmental commitment through processes and activities that go beyond legal requirements. The objective of the present study is to provide an overview of the use of environmental certifications in the tourism sector in Italy, to understand how they can increase the competitiveness of the tourism supply systems of Italy. Methodologically, the study starts with a theoretical background on environmental certifications and their role in the tourism sector.

SNAI areas and the PNRR in Sardinia: challenges and opportunities in tourism for the 2021-2027 programming cycle
Stefano Renoldi, Jessica Sara Marie McComas

 Abstract

The Sardinian Regional Government’s strategic guidelines regarding Inner Areas help identify and support local communities that, through a bottom-up integrated approach, will be later defined by a local development project based on a local multi-fund strategy. The National Strategy for Inner Areas active in the regional territory draws from these principles. NSIA’s projects aim to implement “essential” citizenship services as well as promote economic development of the areas taking into consideration their tourism potential, interlaced increasingly with current NRRP measures. At the same time, the 2021-2027 EU Cohesion Policy Partnership Agreement introduces new important elements concerning synergy and complementarity among interventions within local development strategies and projects the local coalitions gained from the NRRP intervention strategies. This research is cause for reflection on the many aspects of continuity that lie in both the NSIA strategies, with an eye to tourism enhancement, and in the planning of activities promoted by local coalitions the NRRP intervention strategies.

 

 

Integrated planning for ''small'' territories: The italian response to the pandemic
Stefania Cerutti, Paola Menzardi

 Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has shocked the world of tourism, internationally as well as nationally. Current trends have shown how much and how the rediscovery of small villages and marginal areas have opened up – albeit with some criticalities – valuable new opportunities of sustainable development for the country system. Approaches to slowness and proximity outline emerging experiential tourism as strategic resource for the economic and employment revamping of small Italian towns and peripheral territories. Starting from these considerations, the contribution intends to highlight and analyse good participatory practices of enhancement of marginal, rural, and mountainous areas, that represent virtuous processes through which territories have
been revitalized in a sustainable and digital way. The article collects and systematizes the output of a research conducted using qualitative methodology aimed at analysing several projects – implemented by some national institutions – identified as good practices.

 

 

Food and wine tourism and satisfaction in Sicilian agritourisms: An analysis of tourist experiences from comments on Tripadvisor
Giuseppe Avena, Valentina Oddo

 Abstract

Food and wine tourism defines the nature and culture of a destination through local dishes and beverages. Often this concept of tourism is related to sustainability. To maximize this combination, a process of raising awareness toward green practices needs to be developed. The objective of this paper is to analyze customer satisfaction through TripAdvisor tourists' reviews concerning Sicilian agritourism by performing a Content Analysis. Additionally, we model the satisfaction rating to identify the most satisfied tourist-reviewers through an OLOGIT model. In this study, web scraping techniques were used for extracting TripAdvisor data. As evidenced by our results, agritourism is an effective means of sustaining local economies.

 

 

Operators of sustainability and slowness in Karst food and wine
Moreno Zago

 Abstract

Along the eastern border of Friuli Venezia Giulia, extending from Gorizia to Trieste and into Istria, expands the Karst-Kras plateau, a rocky and calcareous plateau that attracts nature lovers but is also able to offer tourism in all its forms: cultural, sporting, religious, food and wine, etc. Through two surveys, the author assesses the level of sustainability and implementation of criteria for slow tourism (contamination, authenticity, sustainability, time, slowness, emotion) within the agritourisms, "osmize", taverns and farms of the Karst region and explores the ability of these establishments to transition towards sustainable models, necessary for a development in line with new social, economic, and environmental demands and requirements. The study found that the food and wine offerings in Karst are characterized by a fairly established sustainable behaviour developed over time and by the offer of diversified and local products capable of attracting a clientele, potentially slow.

 

 

Cultural tourism in Langhe, Monferrato and Roero: Landscape, food and wine and literature
Giovanna Rech, Luca Mori, Lorenzo Migliorati

 Abstract

SPOT is a three-year project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 program between January 2020 and December 2022. It aimed to develop a new approach to understanding and addressing cultural tourism in fifteen case studies in Europe and Israel, improving the development of disadvantaged areas and planning strategies aimed at a balance in more developed areas. The Italian case study is the Langhe, Monferrato and Roero area where cultural tourism has experienced strong development at a multidimensional level over the past decades. This paper aims to illustrate the representations of cultural tourism that the local community has developed.

 

 

Cultural landscapes and gastronomic events in the tourism promotion of Novara di Sicilia
Sonia Gambino

 Abstract

The present paper aims at investigating the value of food as cultural expression. Starting from the analysis of the history of one of the villages on the mountains belonging to the metropolitan area of Messina, Novara di Sicilia, the focus of the investigation will be the relation between tourism, culture, and identity, which can find
a significant point of reference in typical products such as “maiorchino” cheese. The present paper aims at representing a short reading about the role that cultural and culinary events can play in promoting tourism in places such as Novara di Sicilia, which, while being rich in environmental, landscape and cultural resources of great value. The strategic objective to be achieved is to reinforce competitiveness of the territory as a tourist destination, through a «dynamic protection» of natural and cultural heritage, intended as enhancement of the tourist product, in which business transformations meet with conservation of the historical-cultural heritage in a functional renovation.

 

 

The ''experimental laboratory'' of knowledge and enhancement of cultural heritage in the territory of Giaveno: heritage education, tourism and innovation. a project for and with young people with steam approach
Emanuela Gasca, Francesco Fiermonte, Sara Arouit

 Abstract

Within this framework, looking at the values of the Faro Convention, the "Experimental Laboratory of Knowledge and Valorisation of Cultural Heritage" was developed with the students of the Liceo Pascal of Giaveno (Turin) to create, on the one hand, a system of knowledge and values that develop adolescents' sense of belonging to the territory and, on the other, relationships and moments of aggregation around cultural heritage, as an element of well-being and quality of life. All within a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) education approach in which the Arts represent not only scientific content but also soft and life skills. The result of the Laboratory was the creation of a web portal where students could share the tourist itineraries, they had created within the framework of the three types of experiences proposed: on-site, on-line and on-life. Within this framework, the site also offers a narrative of the heritage linked to these routes through dedicated sheets, shared through historical characteristics, elements of curiosity and specifics of fruition, which have been interpreted and communicated through their unprecedented view

 

 

From religious rites to anthropological tourism: the case of the triennial feast of the Madonna of the Collect
Samuel Piana

 Abstract

For 450 years, la Festa Triennale della Madonna della Colletta in Luzzogno, a small village in the Strona Valley in the province of VCO in Piedmont, has welcomed the faithful and visitors with a great rite of Marian faith of ancient peasant origins. A gallery made with hemp sheets and wooden poles is crossed by the simulacrum of the Virgin accompanied by an orderly procession that moves with the light of torches alone, involving those present. Over the years, the flow of visitors has grown, attracted by the more scenic aspects of this religious festival which conceals folk rituals which are no longer traceable in the whole of Piedmont. From 350 inhabitants, in less than 6 hours, about 8,000 visitors arrive in the small area. In this situation, needs and requirements arise to be investigated and analysed, describing the relationship that is established between visitor and resident or in other words between Host and Guest.

 

 

Bànari, from rural hamlet to tourist destination: A social and cultural regeneration project
Gavino Maresu

 Abstract

This paper explains a project of social and cultural regeneration of Bànari, a small rural village in the hinterland of northern Sardinia, at risk of depopulation. Banari has got limited but very interesting cultural and natural resources to exploit, which could arouse interest in cultured and ethical tourists. The tangible and intangible cultural heritage, rural activities, agri-food, arts and events are the strategic assets to develop tourism. Banari's geographical (barycentric) location offers opportunity for very interesting excursions to tourist resorts, monuments and archaeological sites, which are no more than 80 kilometres away. This paper aims to be an exemplifying model of a tourist-cultural planning for a small historic-rural village, which, despite going through socio-economic crisis, can renew itself socially and culturally by exploiting its heritage and its genius loci.