Innovative Forms of Cultural Tourism in the Territories of Archaeology

The presence of some major archaeological sites in Italy and in many regions of Europe triggers interesting issues for theoretical reflection and concrete experimentation on the relation between the safeguard of heritage and the promotion of innovative forms of cultural tourism, in order to release these very peculiar territories from the conditions of immobility and isolation they face. An emblematic and paradigmatic example is constituted by the case of Pompeii, involved in feasibility studies promoted by the Municipality, aiming to engage a process of development through the drafting of a program of “regeneration” of a wide area, but in full respect of the landscape and constraints. The specific object of the proposed study consists in a region of about 1 square kilometer in the north-western portion of the archaeological excavations of Pompeii. Over the past decades, the main tourist streams of ancient Pompeii did not exert any influence on this territory, which is extremely relevant in terms of landscape, culture and history, but weakly organized and qualified. This part of the Pompeian area has been interpreted as an "experimental" park featuring a new accessibility, even through the re-opening of the northern "gate" of Porta Vesuvio. In the construction of the park, the issues of agriculture and archeology have been widened with further potential detectable in the area - from the sport activities to the tourist-recreational and cultural ones - giving new functions to a heritage often underused and abandoned. The park will assume the connotation of "gateway" to the National Park of Vesuvius, as an element of great tourist attraction. Its relevant peculiarities will mainly involve - besides the dominant archaeological aspect - the set of "Villae rusticae" not yet fully unveiled by the interrupted excavations and the widespread fabric of abandoned manor farms dipped into a vast agricultural heritage. The experimental character of the design processings - due to the networking of different scales and various involved actors - has allowed to combine the requirements of environmental protection and those of development, reuniting heritage and cultural tourism in an indissoluble weaving.