Tourist Itineraries, Food, and Rural Development: A Critical Understanding of Rural Policy Performance in Northeast Italy

Luca Simone Rizzo, Raffaela Gabriella Rizzo () and Antonella Trabuio
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Luca Simone Rizzo: Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne—Institut de Recherche et d’Etudes Supérieures du Tourisme (IREST), 21–Roue Broca, 75005 Paris, France
Raffaela Gabriella Rizzo: Department of History, Archaeology and Art History, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan, Largo Gemelli, 1, 20123 Milan, Italy
Antonella Trabuio: Statistical Support for Rural Development—Directorate adg EAFRD Remediation and Irrigation, Veneto Region, Via Torino, 110, 30172 Mestre, Italy

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 7, 1-27

Abstract: The tourist itinerary concept refers to initiatives combining activities/attractions under a theme and stimulating business opportunities by developing products and services, in accordance with the cultural context and the interaction with the territory. Rural Development Policy serves as example. While not intended to promote tourism directly, it encourages the creation/rediscovery of tourist itineraries, including those that are food-related. We undertook a case study in northeastern Italy. Using a mixed research method, we aimed to appreciate the role played, within the EU Rural Development Programme of the Veneto region, by tourism and the tourist itinerary as a tool for territorial and traditional foods valorisation. Our first objective was to identify the correlations between the choice of certain types of tourism interventions and the territorial characterization by tourism. Through a correspondence statistical analysis, two analyses on the funding beneficiaries were carried out in particular on the period 2014–2020, depending on whether the issuing organization was the Veneto Region or a Local Action Group. The types of intervention on information and infrastructures for tourism, as well as on the redevelopment of cultural heritage, emerged of interest, in particular to public entities. Focusing on the LEADER areas, we examined, through semi-structured interviews, critical issues associated with the implementation of the Policy to grasp the degree of incisiveness of the examined Measures which place the tourist itinerary at the centre of the rural development. Our work shows that in the territories analysed, tourism is a driving force. There emerges, though, a need to refocus the Measures. This is to ensure that their effects are more durable, that eligible actors are more involved, and that there is less strategic redundancy in relation to other policies.

Keywords: tourism development; tourist itineraries; rural development; food; EU Rural Development Programme; northeast Italy; Veneto Region; Local Action Group (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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