L'Art-Tourism come strategia di sviluppo sostenibile nei siti del patrimonio minore: pratiche emergenti in Italia

This paper explores the emerging field of Art Tourism, which has the potential to create new destinations and bolster lesser-known heritage sites and areas outside major urban attractions. While similar to cultural tourism, Art Tourism has distinctive features such as modern interpretations of heritage and promotion of art-based practices, which can drive innovative processes for regeneration and sustainable development. The paper aims to identify these unique characteristics by presenting emerging practices in Italy related to two major Art Tourism trends: creative tourism and urban gentrification. It focuses on experiences of artistic residencies, co-creation processes with communities, and artistic re-narrations of places, which aim to re-semantize territories and communities in the name of sustainable development and social cohesion. This study is one of the first on Art Tourism in Italy and seeks to inform public decision-makers and stakeholders in the sector about the potentials and risks of these trends within strategies for the promotion and tourist development of territories founded on the activation of autochthonous socio-artistic practices. The paper also interrogates the critical aspects of this aspiration, particularly regarding the dialectic between authorship and participation.