Tourism and Rural Landscape: Sustainable Development and Territorial Enhancement

Tourism can play a key role in the revitalization and development processes of rural areas. However, not all forms of tourism bring benefits to host communities. Few are in fact the positive impacts, both in economic and social terms, of mass or seasonal tourism, without considering the negative impact it can have on the environment in areas where nature is often still uncontaminated. It is therefore a question of making alternative proposals to the mainstream ones by suggesting tourism solutions attentive to the consumption of resources and to not interfere with the lifestyle of a destination. In order to enhance the rural heritage we need to move from fast-paced tourism activities to a slow-paced travelling style able to immerse tourists in an experience that is first of all cultural. The paper presents a methodology applicable to the Italian and European context for the revival of rural areas through the development of sustainable tourism starting from the Tourism Carrying Capacity concept. In the literature the TCC is applied to try to limit the number of tourists in congested destinations. The paper instead proposes to use TCC to address the development of tourism in not yet mature locations such as rural areas. In this way it is possible to determine the guidelines to support sustainable tourism development and planning because the environmental, social and economic limits of a given destination are already known at the planning stage. This methodology is then applied to a concrete case study, Santo Stefano d’Aveto a rural municipality of the Liguria Region.