The digitization of tourism has made numerous platforms available, but there remains a significant shortage of tools capable of promoting local events and activities. This study hypothesizes that a decentralized digital interface can mitigate over-tourism. We conducted an experiment by deploying a digital platform to assess the synergy between local providers and visitors through the Tourism Open-ended Experimentation Platform (TOEP), a multi-interface solution designed to directly connect tourism activity providers with residents and visitors. The platform integrates a web portal for providers and a mobile app for users, supported by a recommendation system based on individual profiles and preferences. TOEP stands out for its focus on local and sustainable tourism, facilitating the promotion of smaller events and helping to reduce the concentration of tourist flows in already saturated destinations. Initial validation, conducted with a panel of industry experts, highlighted the ease of use and good organization of the interfaces, with scores above average. Preliminary results confirm the relevance of TOEP as a tool for the sustainable and digitized promotion of local tourism, opening prospects for development towards a smart, participatory tourism ecosystem that can be replicated in different territorial contexts.
14 April 2023 in Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana
This contribution is inspired by a current scenario regarding the city of Naples, Italy, where a strong popular uprising is underway against local institutions that are destroying the Camorra murals celebrating its “heroes” died in “war”. These events are very interesting to analyse the theme of the iconographic exploitation of urban space by the criminal part of society in order to amplify the identity symbols of a tribal structure such as the Camorra. While on the one hand the analysis aims to show the positive response of civil society and institutions in eradicating these celebratory icons of evil, on the other hand the research intends to emphasise the profound and worrying systemic modification of public space according to subjective and negative canons that, however, are also shared by some intellectuals and even an administrative court.