Tourism today

TOURISM IS TRAVEL FOR RECREATIONAL OR LEISURE PURPOSES. THE WORLD TOURISM

ORGANIZATION DEFINES TOURISTS AS PEOPLE WHO “ TRAVEL TO AND STAY IN PLACES

OUTSIDE THEIR USUAL ENVIRONMENT FOR NOT MORE THAN ONE CONSECUTIVE YEAR FOR

LEISURE, BUSINESS AND PURPOSES NOT RELATED TO THE EXERCISE OF AN ACTIVITY

REMUNERATED FROM WITHIN THE PLACE VISITED” . TOURISM HAS BECOME A POPULAR

GLOBAL LEISURE ACTIVITY.

Today tourism is no longer the privilege of a chosen few : it is, rather, a mass phenomenon which almost everybody in the developed world has had the fortune and privilege to experience. The United Nations World Tourism Organization ( UNWTO ) confirms that tourism “ is one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world.”

Defining what modern-day tourism is can be

difficult. This is because it has become a

dynamic and competitive industry that must constantly

adapt to the changing needs and desires of the customer, whose

satisfaction, safety and enjoyment are of great

importance to the success of the tourism

business.

The tourism industry can be divided up into five different sectors: accommodation, recreation and entertainment, food and beverage

services, travel services and transport.

KEY BENEFITS OF TOURISM

Export Earnings

International tourism is the world’s largest export earner and an important factor in the balance of payments of many countries. Foreign currency receipts from international tourism surpass exports of petroleum products, motor vehicles, textiles or any other product or service.

Employment

Travel and tourism is an important job creator, employing an estimated 100 million people around the world. Research shows that job creation in tourism is growing one and half times faster than any other industrial sector.

Infrastructure Investment

Travel and tourist stimulate enormous investments in new infrastructure, most of which helps to improve the living conditions of local residents as well as tourists.

Tourism : responsibilities and problems

We have spoken about the beneficial effects of tourism. However, tourists and people working in the tourism industry will have to face up to some serious problems in the future too, as example environmental degradation, air travel is extremely polluting. Air traffic is growing fast and scientists predict that , by 2015, half of the annual destruction of the ozone layer will be caused by air travel. Moreover around 350 new golf courses are build worldwide each year and it’s estimated that golf courses need around 1500 kilogrammes of chemical fertilizers and pesticides each year.

Tourism impacts the environment with the destructive force of its visitors. Sustainable tourism in Italy has become the goal of historians, environmentalists and tourism boards throughout the country. The ability to provide tourists the opportunity to visit destinations in Italy is being implemented through various sustainable projects. Sustainable tourism strives to conserve resources, minimize pollution and leave less of a footprint on the destination’s environment.

Sustainable means a new tourism, far away from the conventional tourist destinations, a slow mobility, special attention to the relationship between tourism and nature, in order to realize a new equilibrium between man and nature, following strategies of harmony and respect of environment

It aims to promote cultural, historical and artistic peculiarities of the territory. People run away from the most crowded tourist destinations, and Green Tourism is able to offer something easy, back-country, natural reserves, parks, cycling routes and trekking paths

Investments in Green Tourism, are something new and positive for Italian tourism market innovation. Useful interventions can be done promoting and qualify natural landscapes, rural atmospheres, artistic and archaeological heritage and local gastronomic tradition. This innovative tourist offer brings hospitality business to get specialized and to increase facilities dedicated to the tourist target interested in sport and wellness holidays

Local governments and communities are relying upon

themselves to implement sustainable tourism

Cinque Terre Sustainable Tourism Project is on the northeastern coast of Italy. The five villages, Montersosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggore, attract a huge number of tourists that cause a drain on the environment. In 1999 the area was recognized as a national park. Visitors are required to purchase a card that allows them to stay for periods up to seven days. To reduce the number of personal vehicles in the park, the price of the card includes transportation by bus.

This is ………. Italy

WHY CHOOSE ITALY ?Where else in the world can you find such geographical extremes, the rich countryside of central Italy with fairy-

tale towns to the sun-kissed South with some of the world’s active volcanoes and lovely towns. Italy is an

open university, a historic country, a land of cities with atmosphere, contrasts and beautiful views. It possesses

the world’s greatest architectural and art treasures as Colosseum, the Pantheon, Pompeii, Cumae….

Italy is a place must be visited as it offers something for everybody : good food, wine and hospitality, long sandy

beaches, lakes and mountains.

ROME “ All roads lead to Rome”Rome is a busy city of about four million residents and, as the capital of

Italy it is the centre of national government. While the look of central Rome is most defined by the Baroque style of

the many fountains, churches and palaces, there are also classical antiquities, Medieval buildings and Renaissance palaces.

Coliseumthis amphitheatre, inaugurated in 80 BC, is also known as the Flavian

Amphitheatre.

Fontana di Trevi this is a Baroque creation. Tourists continue the tradition of throwing

two coins over their shoulders into the fountain to ensure their return to Rome.

Piazza di Spagna this square is a popular tourist attraction. It is dominated by the majestic

Spanish Steps.

St.Peter’s Basilica it is the largest church in the world.

FLORENCE “Capital of the arts“

It is the intellectual and artistic centre of the country know to millions as the “ Cradle of Renaissance “. The city on the River Arno, is a treasure of paintings, sculptures, buildings, a tribute to artists as Leonardo, Michelangelo e Botticelli.

VENICE “ A magical city”

Venice is built on 117 islands; it has 150 canals and 400 bridges. The hearth of public life is Piazza San Marco, where tourists and citizens sit on the terraces of the famous Florian Cafè. In 1720 it has received Byron, Goethe, Wagner and many other famous people.

For centuries gondolas have been the traditional means of transport in Venice, now only tourists use them.

St Mark’s Basilica

Campania

The region of Campania is in the south west part of Italy. Its territory goes from the Appennini Mountains to the Tirrenian Sea.The region offers to the tourist many different countryside: the tirrenian coast diversifies from sandy and marshland to intended coast.The Partenopean Islands Ischia, Procida and Capri enclose to the west the Gulf of Naples.

The region of Campania, from a touristic point of view, is very important; since the XIX century the islands and the Amalfitan coast were visited by the richest people of the north european society.

The coast line, the islands, the vulcanic environment, the archeological patrimony, the richness of the artistic inheritance are the reasons why tourists come copiously to visit this region

The Amalfitan coast, the Sorrentina peninsula and the Partenopean islands offers a luxury tourism, while the southern coast is organized with many touristic villages (Palinuro, Marina di Camerota).

The archeological zones of the Magna Grecia and Pompei, Ercolano and Capua are very interesting to visit.

The tourists can admire the majesty of the Borbonic dinasty in the monumental Caserta Royal Palace with its splendid park of 120 hectares.

Tourism in Campania Campania is a region with a strong touristic

vocation : it is the territory that attracts the majority of tourism in Southern Italy.

There are some imbalances in that not all the multiple tourist potentialities are adeguately utilized, while some territories appear to have been

The European Parliament resolution of 18 February 2000 recognized tourism as a sector of extraordinary potential, even if largely unrealized yet, and as a possible tool for economic and social development in depressed areas.

Tourism in the last years has been experiencing deep modifications, mainly due to social changes related to globalization.

Larger and larger groups of people visit places of interest in remote areas, willing to be “part” of different social and cultural realities.

Therefore, tourism today is not only a form of enjoyment, but also a direct source

of information and knowledge, a new form of "culture", comparable to traditional mass culture media.

However, mass tourism is also triggering heavy environmental effects, laying on the table problems with no simple solutions like “is it possible to enjoy and appreciate a place without altering its environment?”, and “how much must a natural site be modified to transform it into a tourist place?”.

Thus, the management of tourist territories and resources is assuming an extraordinary value.

The environmental context is no longer considered as a simple background, but as central in promoting activities which may ensure an effective social and economic development of the areas involved.

 

Ecological knowledge helps identify modifications caused by the impact of tourist

activities and traces the way towards a sustainable tourism able to promote economic development respecting, in the meantime, the needs of the environment.

In this perspective each place may assume a specific value, either intrinsic, as a witness of art and history, and extrinsic for the activities its proper use could generate.

The “Agenda 21”, approved in 1992 by the UNCED (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development), is the first evidence of the general interest in environmental sustainability issues.

The Charter of Lanzarote in 1995, which can be seen as its continuation, is the cornerstone of sustainable tourism.

The Identity Card for Sustainable Tourism of 1997 is the birth certificate of Responsible Tourism in Italy.

Sustainable Tourism means Quality Tourism   Ecology in the last decades has been teaching us how precarious the balance of nature is.

Tourism contributes to worsen this balance either increasing traffic and pollution and causing less evident but nevertheless serious side effects.

“Mass tourism” has often been associated with damages to the environment and to the involved communities.

Nevertheless today a new form of ”responsible” tourism is gaining ground, complying with both the respect of the local environment and people and the pleasure of travelling.

The debate, therefore, is how to pursuit a form of responsible tourism fostering either the socio-economic aspects and the environmental conservation.

But what exactly is “environmental tourism”? This concept is referred to tourism

activities providing services in line with a sustainable development policy of the territory.

The fundamental principle of this form of tourism is the “RESPECT” each tourist should have for bio-diversity.

Environmental tourism can thus be defined as a different form of tourism

using natural resources in a responsible way, without affecting the fragility of ecosystems.

Green tourism, for example, is a recent form of eco-tourism.

Its growing demand shows how "environmental sensitivity" is spreading.

The request for “natural holidays”, is, moreover, strictly interrelated to the request of local resources and products, pivoting in this way the development of local micro economies.

In this perspective "protected areas“ hold an important role. They are a sort of "dynamic museums", where the impact of development

policies geared to the promotion of eco-compatible local potentiality can be analyzed.

In the meantime they are aimed at preserving environmental qualities,

recognised as a form of wealth and an essential prerequisite for cultural tourism, attentive to historical and scenic values.

Today protected areas fit very well also in hilly and coastal territories, which

experience a strong human pressure especially during summer.

Historical traces show that tourism in the Mediterranean was already practiced in

ancient times. In the early seventeenth century a new form of tourism appeared, due to the interest shown by young north European aristocrats for the most beautiful and culturally interesting places in Italy.

The so-called "Grand Tour", a term used for the first time in 1670, was a form of elite tourism, based on the rediscovery of archaeological sites and places known through paintings and literary texts. It was the necessary cultural fulfilment of the education of any wealthy young men, since, as Samuel Johnson wrote in 1776 "a man who has never been there is always seen as lower ... The great objective of travelling is to see the Mediterranean”.

However it is only in the late nineteenth century that the term “tourism”

starts to assume today’s meaning to define trips made by a growing number of people around the world for purposes of recreation.

Italy has been since then an extraordinary pole of attraction both for its wealth of historical and cultural relics and its extraordinary landscapes.

CAMPANIA Campania, in particular, has always exerted a strong attraction due either to

natural features and to the historic peculiarities of its territory linked to the Greek and Roman civilizations.

Campi Flegrei, Posillipo, Vesuvius, Herculaneum, Pompeii and Sorrento were considered mandatory steps of the Grand Tour. Tourists fell under the spell of its climate and its natural beauties, of its archaeological heritage and of its impressive volcanic surroundings.

Vesuvius was extraordinary appealing. Goethe, in "Voyage in Italy“, saw it as a symbol of the primeval force of nature inspiring admiration, fear and awe.

This representation, roused by the perception of something immeasurable and incomparable, was inspired by Kant’s idea of “sublime”.

Areas like the peninsula of Sorrento, the Amalfi coast, the islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida and the Cilento, where international tourism holds great importance, have been generally well preserved.

Other territories, unfortunately, have been disfigured by mass beach tourism, which has generated only short-time wealth, without any respect for environmental and cultural resources.

The Domitian coast, for example, has been subjected, since the sixties, to an unprecedented speculation: the residential areas along the coast, usually "second or holidays homes", have deeply altered the existing naturalistic environment, destroying great part of the pine forest and increasing dramatically the levels of waste.

Today it is assumed that coastal areas need, now more than ever, to be protected either from aggressive forms of tourism and from speculation, which lead inevitably to landscapes degradation. Only the protection and enhancement of environmental areas and the respect of cultural and historical traditions may support sustainable development.

But non-destructive and friendly tourism need attentive planning and competence.

Campania in Italy holds a top position by extension of territory under protection:

over 4000 square kilometres are labelled as protected areas. Among them the National Park of Vesuvius, the Regional Park of Campi Flegrei,

Naples’ “historical center”, Caserta's Royal Palace with its park, San Leucio's silk factories, the archaeological sites of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata, Paestum, Velia, the National Park of Cilento and of Diano Vallum, the Padula Charterhouse. All of them have been included among the World Heritage by UNESCO.

The National Park of Vesuvius, for example, (established in 1991 and classified

together with other 130 sites as SCI, Site of Community Importance), aims at preserving and developing this particularly striking volcanic landscape, rising among a densely urbanized area. Campania population is, in fact, located mainly along the coastal strip, from the Gulf of Naples to the Gulf of Salerno, and in the flat areas above the first Apennines.

The coastline has always exerted a huge attractions and the population

density on the coastal strip has slowly destroyed the characteristic vegetation, the so-called Mediterranean scrub. The problematic interrelation between people and the environment can be pointed out analyzing the following factors: land use, water consumption, waste and pollution, physical and socio-cultural pressures.

The concentration of people and activities along the Neapolitan coast, increased in the fifties, has accentuated existing regional imbalances.

Coastal landscapes have been gradually transformed spoiling their beauty. Various kinds of activities have been established: some of them are in striking contrast with the territorial potential resources, and with no effective and permanent economic advantage.

The Capri case

The island of Capri is the typical example of a “honeypot”, a place attracting a great number of tourists for its beauty.

The data report peaks of 18.000-20.000 people a day in summer. This number exceeds by far the so called “carrying capacity” of the island, that is

its capability of receiving tourists.

This situation has a negative impact on the quality of life and on the environment

of the island, leading to an increase in refuse levels and water pollution and in a general worsening in the quality of services usually offered to local people and resident tourists.

Moreover the so called “hit and run” tourists receive a false idea of the island.

Two associations “CapriEXcellence” and “Fondazione Capri” were established in

the last few years.

Both of them have focused their attention on the study of the island’s problems and of their possible solution.

Their primary goal is to encourage the island’s cultural development, to

defend and to preserve its uniqueness, as a natural, historical and tourist heritage, “promoting the island of Capri on both a national and international scale, supporting all those activities which encourage cultural tourism, even in those periods of the year when the island is, traditionally, scarcely populated”.

The associations have also analysed the driving importance of tourism, as a "primary economic value" for the community.

They have also taken into consideration the efforts carried out by local operators to offer a "tourism of high quality and cultural level", respectful of the historical tradition of Capri.

Both the associations consider as unavoidable and urgent the regulation of day-

trip tourist flows, whose indiscriminate arrivals cause problems and service disruptions and damages the image of one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Harsh words like "violence and damage" have been used to define the

problems caused by this unregulated mass: “tourists swamp the island’s street, creating friction and obstruction along the small village’s backbone, invading the marina at the crack of dawn, taking the funicular and then going back in the evening , producing unwanted waste”.

And, as a consequence, tourists who spend longer periods on the island do not

receive what they expect and daily “hit and run” tourists "get a distorted and misleading vision of the island reality”.

Members of the island community have recently suggested a toll payment for day-trip tourists which should be used either to improve receptive structures and to restore the enchanting fascination of the “Sirens’ Island”.

Conclusions

In Campania, as we have seen, there are several “honeypots” places, attracting a great number of tourists. The concentration of tourist flows can be expressed either in quantity (Pompeii 2 million visitors, Vesuvius 600,000, Herculaneum 250,000, e.g.) and in time (from April to August).

People living in these areas receive undoubtedly benefits from tourism, but, at the same time, suffer its negative aspects, mainly due to its seasonal form.

New strategies still need to be implemented.

They should be aimed at reducing seasonal tourism and at ensuring a better and longer distribution of arrivals in the territory.

We would like to welcome you in Naples.Thank you very much indeed