Francesca Silvia Rota (p), Maria Giuseppina Lucia (p)

Inmaculada Díaz Soria

After the Covid-19 pandemic, increased sensitivity to environmental, ethical, and health problems accelerated the rise of new tourism and tourist practices, distant from international mass tourism. In such a context, proximity tourism is gaining new attention among regional scientists, namely because of its impact on local communities and ecosystems and the local economic system. Intuitively, proximity tourism identifies a type of domestic tourism characterised by limited travel distance and congestion. For this reason, it is also often indicated as sustainable tourism. However, the definitions of proximity tourism are diverse, and a solid debate is still to come. For instance, some authors identify this type of tourism in short-range routes and a duration that goes from a single overnight to a weekend. Other authors, conversely, include in proximity tourism also daily visits of at least 4 hours characterised by innovation and low-impact means of transport. Likely, proximity tourism is poorly debated because of its limited (or underestimated) impact on the local economy compared to international tourism. Moreover, proximity tourists are far more challenging to detect than international ones, due to the often informal nature of close-to-home travels. At the same time, a debate is relevant, especially today, that international mass tourism showed its weaknesses.

Giampaolo Vitali (p)

Francesca Silvia Rota

The Pistoia Mountain area, 30 km from Pistoia and about 90 km from Florence, was the traditional holiday resort of the local bourgeoisie, a tourist model that disappeared from the 1980s onwards. However, its main municipalities, San Marcello Piteglio and Abetone Cutigliano, saw a strong increase of tourism in 2020, during the Covid pandemic. The phenomenon repeated, and further strengthened, in 2021 and 2022, fostering the interest of local stakeholders on the role of the proximity tourism in developing the area, also thanks to a study made by CNR and University of Florence.
The research revealed the characteristics of the tourist supply and demand, with the various types of accommodations, from traditional small family-run hotels, to the new B&Bs managed by families, to the business model that rents second homes through OTA platforms (Airbnb, Booking, etc.), and the various types of operators (restaurants, nature guides, farmers, bicycle rental services, etc.)
Interviews and focus groups conducted with entrepreneurs and stakeholders made a SWOT analysis, used for defining public policy proposals to exploit the strengths of the tourism filière, reduce its weaknesses, exploit the new tourism models and avoid the threats from bad economic and social scenarios.
Our study highlights the opportunities that are based on the richness of the natural assets and on the heterogeneity of the tourist filière, which satisfies numerous segments of the demand (food and wine, culture, outdoor sports, etc.), but also noted the negative effects of the environmental threats (impact on the ski-resort) and the difficulty of integrating the initiatives promoted by local administrators (area brand of origin, fairs, shows, new infrastructures, etc.) and that ones from individual entrepreneurs (websites, promotional offers, etc.).
Among the most innovative proposals that are being implemented are: i) the set-up of a public center (Mo.To.RE.) for providing services and professional training to operators; ii) new integrations between the tourism and forestry filières (forestry therapy); and between the tourism and mechanical filières (pure active ingredients from red pine needles).

Inmaculada Díaz Soria (p), Nora Müller

Giampaolo Vitali

The pandemics proofed a disturbed relation of humanity and nature and highlighted a basic need of humanity to be in touch with natural environments and outdoor spaces. Due to the lock-down, natural areas in proximity to urban areas increased their visitor numbers. Notwithstanding, previous trends already indicated an increasing diversity of outdoor recreation and nature-based tourisms (including ecotourism, active tourism, etc.) provoking issues of overcrowding and overtourism. In this context, we aim to investigate the transformation of natural areas into tourism products. That is, their commodification as an expression of the disturbed humanity-nature relationship; existing territories and areas for proximity tourism and their characteristics, especially in relation to commodification processes; and the accessibility of these areas, that are provisioning for the need to be in contact with nature, and hence have a potential to contribute to overcome humanity-nature alienation (as an expression of nature’s commodification for tourism).
We approach our objectives through the exploration of four relevant spaces for proximity tourism in natural areas. Our cases include La Trapa and Muntanya del Voltor in the Serra de Tramuntana (Mallorca) and Serra de Teià and the eastern part of Parc de la Serralada Litoral (Barcelona). We engage in participatory observation and conduct interviews with territorial agents and visitors in the areas. Additionally, we examine secondary data from our cases, like management and strategic plans.
These areas are of interest because of their location, close to important sun and beach and urban tourism destinations, close to large urban centers, because they have seen their frequentation increased and situations of overcrowding have been noticed by the managers during the pandemic. Some cases were already popular even before the pandemic, as a result of tourism promotion and related to tourist commodification of nature, because of their good accessibility for a variety of visitors (children, professional hikers, elderly, etc.) and the proximity to these urban and tourist areas. By examining these four examples, we expect to deepen the knowledge about proximity tourism and its role and impacts on the recreative use of nature. A research agenda on tourism, nature and proximity-based leisure activities will result from this proposal.