Sustainable Destination Management
Strategies in the OIC Member Countries
86
In line with the Tourism Strategic Plan, Italy took a step recently towards improving sustainable
transport in the tourism sector. An agreement was signed between the Ministry of Tourism and
the Italian electricity and gas distributor ENEL to promote, develop, and improve electric
infrastructure for sustainable touristic mobility, including charging stations throughout the
major destinations, villages, and roads. This will improve the offer quality and reduce noise and
air pollution.290
The Ministry of Tourism is also promoting a slow and sustainable sector of the industry by
creating and promoting a slow mobility network infrastructure of green paths in some of the
most famous, historical, and picturesque routes.291 In collaboration with regional and
autonomous administrations, the Ministry launched the Cammini d’Italia atlas and website, in
order to offer travelers and tourists a real intermodal infrastructure of green roads where they
can choose to travel Italy on foot, by bike, on horseback, or with other forms of sustainable
transport. The year 2016 was declared the National Year of the Paths through a directive of the
Ministry which brought together state, region, municipalities, local authorities, public and
private, to enhance 6600 kilometers of nature, religious, cultural, and spiritual roads that cross
the entire country, a part of Italy little known, but fundamental in the offer of slow Italian
tourism.292
In the Liguria, which is a boomerang-shaped region with 300 kilometers of coast along the
Mediterranean and bordering France, some coastal towns experimented problem with poor
transport infrastructure which could not manage the tourism flow. A solution was devised to
implement a train shuttle between some of the villages affected to carry tourists. 293
Another initiative supported by the Ministry as stated by the General Manager of the Directorate
General for Tourism, Francesco Palumbo, at the second convention of the Sustainable
Development Festival, is the promotion of projects which offer a touristic product in which
“tourists do not leave a footprint, rather they help towards sustainability.”294 The University of
Bologna launched one such project: Sea Sentinels, Divers United for the Environment, through
which recreational divers help to protect the maritime environment by contributing through
downloading and sending in questionnaires after each submersion regarding underwater
species and other aspects.295, 296
In 2018, the Interministerial Committee for Economic Planning (CIPE in Italian) approved an
investment plan worth €740 million to strengthen Italy’s cultural offer, strengthen urban
systems, and promote tourism. €59 million are to be invested in sustainable development.297
€6million were allocated for the development of unique projects on issues related to data
290 Directorate-General for Tourism. (2018). MiBACT-ENEL: Turismo a emissioni zero. Retrieved from
291 Directorate-General for Tourism. (n.d.). Cammini d'Italia. Retrieved from
cammini-ditalia/.
292 BeniCulturali. (2017). Cammini D’Italia. Percorsi tra Storia, Cultura e Paesaggi. Retrieved from
293 From interview with Regione Liguria Tourism Project Manager
294 Directorate-General for Tourism. (2018). Sostenibilità: progetti MiBACT. Retrieved from
295 Divers United for the Envirnment. (n.d .). The Duo project . Retrieved from
296 Interreg Mediterranean. (2018). Policies and projects for the sustainable development of tourism in Italy. Retrieved from
sustainable-development-of-tourism-in-italy/.
297 Directorate-General for Tourism. (2018). CIPE: Turismo nel piano di investimenti . Retrieved from