Author(s)

ANGELO BENCIVENGA, ANNAMARIA GIAMPIETRO, ANNALISA PERCOCO

Abstract

Rural tourism is characterized by a particularly strong link between the services and territory offer, because the quality of the environmental, social and cultural components of the territory does not represent a background cover, but it is essential to the qualification of the assets. The rural tourism is, in fact, directly connected to what are called “resources of rurality”: according to the most widely accepted definition, it is a set of resources which, in addition to those of agriculture and processing of its products, it comprises also cultural and artistic components in rural areas. These resources are classified in terms of rural territorial capital, a cross-along, dynamic and evolving environment that includes the human, cultural, economic, social, institutional and symbolic capital of a particular rural area. The phase of territorial diagnosis is crucial to identify those resources that may represent the rural tourism offer and to help increase the competitiveness of the territory. For this purpose, the final output of this research is the construction of a webGis, an extraordinary geographic information management tool, that offers tourists a complete information system appropriate to their needs.

Keywords

rural tourism, rural tourism product, resources of rurality, local development, geographic information system, webGis