Joana Costa (p), Rui Costa, Adriana Miki

Giulia Iannone

Innovation plays is critical in shaping the performance of tourism firms, still, its impact is heterogeneous across the rural-urban divide. Urban areas, with high population densities, established infrastructure, and access to knowledge networks, offer a fertile environment for tourism firms to innovate and scale. Conversely, rural tourism firms face structural constraints and adverse environments but can leverage innovation to capitalize on their unique resources and niche markets.
In urban areas, tourism firms benefit from agglomeration economies. Their proximity to academia and other firms fosters knowledge spillovers and facilitates collaborations that drive innovation. These innovations can help firms differentiate themselves in competitive markets, raising efficiency. Rural tourism firms also stand to gain substantially from innovation, notwithstanding their innovation dynamics often differ. They rely on natural landscapes, cultural heritage, and local traditions, which opens avenues for product innovation through experiential tourism. The rural-urban divide also shapes the types of innovation tourism firms pursue. Urban firms tend to prioritize technological and process innovations, whereas rural firms may focus more on social and organizational innovations.
The paper explores the heterogeneous impact of innovation in tourism firms in Portuguese municipalities, based on a purposefully built database. A survey was run to gather information about innovation practices of Tourism firms which was later combined with economic and financial data from ORBIS. Empirical evidence supports the existence of regional heterogeneity, controlled for specific firm characteristics. The empirical evidence further reinforces the centrality of policy intervention, to bridge the innovation gap. On the one hand, urban firms may need incentives for sustainable practices to mitigate over-tourism, while rural firms can benefit from infrastructure improvements and digital literacy programs. Reassuring knowledge transfer between urban and rural firms, through innovation hubs or tourism clusters can foster mutual learning and promote balanced regional tourism development. Innovation is a vital driver of tourism firms’ performance, with context-specific opportunities and challenges across the rural-urban divide. The strategic adoption of innovative actions aligned with the uniqueness of the environments, will enhance competitiveness, promote sustainable growth, and contribute to regional economic vitality.

Giulia Iannone (p)

Elisa Panzera

Tourism has proved to be both a vulnerable and resilient economic sector. While previous studies have primarily examined this duality within the tourism sector itself, they have largely overlooked the impact this can have on the wider economy. This paper seeks to address this gap by investigating the relationship between tourism development and the ability of local economies to respond to and recover from shocks. First, a conceptual framework is developed to classify different types of tourism development based on the degree of reliance on tourism within the economy and the pressure tourism places on the local territory. This framework is then applied to Italian municipalities, grouping them into distinct clusters of tourism development. Using a multinomial logit model, the study examines how these tourism development types affect economic resilience, with a focus on resistance and recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic. The findings reveal that municipalities with a high correlation between tourism reliance and tourism pressure exhibited lower resistance to the initial economic shock, but showed a stronger capacity for recovery. However, when considering overall resilience – incorporating both resistance and recovery – these municipalities were less likely to achieve full resilience compared to those with more balanced tourism development. These results suggest that tourism’s characteristic of being both vulnerable and resilient extends to the broader context in which tourism has developed, serving simultaneously as a driver of recovery and a source of vulnerability for local economies.

Roberta Capello, Silvia Cerisola, Elisa Panzera (p)

Gustavo Romanillos

Tourism significantly contributes to local economies, particularly in cultural destinations, where it supports cultural activities and heritage preservation. However, over-tourism raises concerns due to its social, cultural, environmental, and economic costs, often harming local communities and threatening sustainability. Existing studies largely focus on case-specific benefits or costs, lacking a unified framework to assess net benefits by balancing tourism's positive and negative impacts. This work aims at identifying suitable theoretical frameworks for determining optimal and efficient (cultural) tourism flows. In fact, recognizing the limits of identifying one single equilibrium level, the work deepens the reasoning by devising efficient intervals of tourism flows. An empirical analysis is carried out on Italian municipalities to prove the reasoning. Policy suggestions are put forward, aimed at favouring the sustainable management of tourism flows and at making the most of the existing cultural heritage, without damaging the local economic and social environment.

Gustavo Romanillos (p), Valentina Tagliari, Borja Moya-Gómez, Enrique Santiago-Iglesias

Joana Costa

As sustainability emerges as a core principle of European tourism, Spain’s Nature Trails Network (Red de Caminos Naturales de España) exemplifies an initiative that fosters eco-tourism while generating positive social and economic impacts. Since 1993, the Spanish Government has repurposed over 10,800 km of disused infrastructures, transforming them into sustainable tourism assets. These trails support rural development by redistributing visitors away from overcrowded destinations, preserving cultural and natural heritage, and fostering local employment in tourism and hospitality sectors.

This study aims to assess the economic and social impact of the Nature Trails Network between late 2019 and August 2024. It seeks to complement previous research by incorporating new data sources to overcome past limitations. The study’s objectives include collecting qualitative and quantitative data on the network’s impact, providing updated insights for policymakers, and developing an interactive online dashboard for dynamic visualization and analysis of results.

The research methodology is structured into two stages. The first stage involves surveys conducted with trail managers, incorporating data from pedestrian and cyclist counters and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The second stage employs alternative data sources, such as social media activity (Flickr and Wikiloc), web-based analytics (Google Popular Times, Foursquare), and geospatial data to analyze usage patterns, seasonality, and tourist behaviors. This approach builds upon methodologies from previous studies to enhance understanding of the network’s spatial and temporal usage dynamics.

The study analyzed 69 selected trails, with survey responses covering 38% of them. Due to sample size limitations, the findings primarily focus on insights derived from new data sources. The interactive dashboard developed for this study integrates a mapping tool, control panels, and real-time data visualizations, enabling users to explore trail-specific statistics dynamically. Findings reveal seasonal variations in trail usage, with peaks in autumn and spring for inland routes and in summer for coastal trails. Weekends and public holidays witness higher activity, and visitors tend to prefer short- to medium-length hikes. The study also identifies key points of interest and visitor clustering, offering valuable data for infrastructure planning and management.

This research highlights the importance of integrating diverse data sources for a comprehensive assessment of tourism trends. Although the study faces limitations regarding data availability, it provides significant insights into the Nature Trails Network’s role in sustainable tourism. The findings support informed decision-making for optimizing trail usage and enhancing rural development, demonstrating the potential of technology-driven analyses in tourism management.