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Cultural tourism: an integrated analysis based on official data

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Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to analyze cultural tourism in Italy and its relationship with the territory (that is considered the principal driver of the analysis) and to provide a tool to policy makers to know the territorial dynamics and identify the best local development policies. The cultural tourism is studied by the relation between tourism statistics and cultural statistics; data used for this study mainly derive from the official surveys produced by Istat (Italian National Institute for Statistics): “Capacity and Occupancy in accommodation establishments” and “Museums and other cultural institutions”. Through a georeferenced approach, mapping the variables on tourism (arrivals and bed places) and culture (museums/cultural exhibits and admissions) at Italian municipality level with reference to the year 2015, the analysis allows the identification of well-defined geographical areas having significant different tourism and cultural characteristics. A system is proposed to categorize the Italian territory in order to identify the areas with the greatest cultural-tourism vocation and those having greatest potential for development, focusing on the most explanatory case studies.

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Fig. 1

Source: elaboration from Istat data source

Fig. 2

Source: elaboration from Istat data source

Fig. 3

Source: elaboration from Istat data source

Fig. 4

Source: elaboration from Istat data source

Fig. 5

Source: elaboration from Istat data source

Fig. 6

Source: elaboration from Istat data source

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Notes

  1. The need for an integration of economic development, natural resources management, protection, social equity and inclusion was introduced for the first time in 1987—Brundtland Report (Our Common Future), and today it is a central point in the political agenda of United Nations: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/.

  2. The Italian Minister of Tourism and Cultural Heritage.

  3. In this paper we focus our attention only to the so-called supply side tourism statistics (that are, as mentioned before, data on capacity and occupancy in accommodation establishments), because our domain of interest in this analysis is the Italian territory and therefore the accommodation establishments located in Italy and their (domestic and inbound) occupancy. For completeness of information, we would add that the EU Regulation also covers demand side statistics (data on tourism demand collected via interviews of households). The latter are also produced by Istat, through the sample survey “Trips and holidays” on the flows of tourists resident in Italy, both within the country and abroad.

  4. Information link: http://www.istat.it/it/archivio/14517.

  5. Size classes are referred to the number of bedrooms in the accommodation establishments. The three categories are:

    • small establishments: less than 25 bedrooms,

    • medium-sized establishments: between 25 and 99 bedrooms,

    • large establishments: 100 or more bedrooms.

  6. Information link: http://www.istat.it/it/archivio/15073.

  7. This organization is due to the fact that, in Italy, the legislative competence in the field of tourism is attributed to the Regions and, consequently, all the related administrative functions.

  8. Results are disseminated mainly through the datawarehouse of the statistics currently produced by Istat “I.Stat” (http://dati.istat.it, theme Services->Tourism) and the Eurostat database (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/tourism/data/database).

  9. http://www.egmus.eu/en/questionnaire—results are disseminated mainly through the datawarehouse “I.Stat” (http://dati.istat.it, theme Communication, culture, trips and time use -> Museum, exhibitions, libraries, archives) and they are also available, at a very detailed level, on the Integrated Information System “Museums, Archaeological Areas and Italian Monuments” accessible to users at http://imuseiitaliani.beniculturali.it/siiEn/. This System has been designed and developed in close collaboration with Mibact and the Regions and Autonomous Provinces. Microdata are released via microStat (https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/167566).

  10. Geographic information system.

  11. For a review of space models, see Zabbini (2007).

  12. An admission is a person who enters a museum or similar institution. The admission fee can be by payment or for free.

  13. Istat (2015).

  14. The indicators were built by normalization of data of two series (tourism flows and museum admissions). The standardization of data was obtained by the z-scores.

  15. The choice of the 5% was determined after empirical tests at different threshold levels (1%, 5%, 10%, etc.) as the one best suited to describing phenomena from a qualitative point of view.

  16. There are also particular situations: in the island of Capri, for example, there is a perfect balance between the municipality of Capri, which is heavily tourism oriented (seaside tourism) and that of Anacapri, with a strong cultural prevalence (visit to the town and its museums).

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  1. Italian National Institute of Statistics, Rome, Italy

    Francesca Petrei, Lorenzo Cavallo & Maria Teresa Santoro

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  1. Francesca Petrei
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  2. Lorenzo Cavallo
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  3. Maria Teresa Santoro
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Correspondence to Francesca Petrei.

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The work is the result of collaboration among the authors, however, in the drafting of the text, sections 1,2,5 and 6 are to be attributed to Francesca Petrei, section 3 to Maria Teresa Santoro and section 4 to Lorenzo Cavallo.

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Petrei, F., Cavallo, L. & Santoro, M.T. Cultural tourism: an integrated analysis based on official data. Qual Quant 54, 1705–1724 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-019-00929-y

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