Tourism Demand in Sicilian Tourist Districts
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Rivista Italiana di Economia Demografia e Statistica Volume LXVI n. 2 Aprile-Giugno 2012 TOURISM DEMAND IN SICILIAN TOURIST DISTRICTS Vincenzo Asero, Rosario D’Agata, Venera Tomaselli 1. Introduction The heterogeneity of goods and services that make up a destination product along with the complex interactions that take place between firms, government agencies, tourists and residents characterize tourism as a system. Each tourist system may comprise one or more destinations in which facilities and services necessary to satisfy tourist needs are located as well as tourism resources. The breadth and size of a system are determined by market supply, but can be the result of spontaneous forms of territory organization, as happened in Italy, at the sub- regional level, for the Local Tourist Systems (LTS) and the Tourist Districts (TD). Tourism systems, therefore, can be of different scales and can have administrative and physical boundaries that define areas of responsibility of those subjects who have to worry about their management, although, sometimes, these boundaries may be more or less blurred. In Sicily, the concept of tourism as a system is reflected in tourist districts – “territorial” and “thematic” – defined on the basis of Regional Decree n. 4/2010 that establish criteria and procedures for their recognition, prescribing certain essential requirements. The model on which tourist districts are based follows a bottom-up approach, since it offers the opportunity for local stakeholders – public and private – to make a system through the autonomous definition of a geographic area and to identify a common project idea, accompanied by a development plan, in order to organize and manage the tourism offer within a given territory (Antonioli Corigliano, 1999). Our study is aimed at identifying types of tourists within the territorial tourist districts in Sicily: 1. Selinunte il Belice and Sciacca Terme; 2. Sicilia Occidentale; 3. Iblei; 4. Il mare dell’Etna; 5. Siracusa e Val di Noto; 6. Golfo di Castellammare; 7. Palermo Costa Normanna; 8. Valle dei Templi; 9. Tirreno-Nebrodi; 10. Thyrrenium Tyndaris – Parco dei Miti; 11. Venere di Morgantina; 12. Taormina Etna; 13. Isole ed Arcipelaghi di Sicilia; 14. Monti Sicani e Valle del Platani; 15. Sicilia Centro Meridionale; 16. Cefalù e Parchi delle Madonie e di Himera. Our 192 Volume LXVI n. 2 Aprile-Giugno 2012 goal is to understand how to configure the tourism demand in relation to structural characteristics of tourists and their spending behaviours1. 2. Tourist districts in Sicily The relationship between tourism and territory is typical of a systemic entity, since it is based on processes of integration and cooperation between the tourist industry components that determine the specialization of the territorial offer. The narrower and more functional the organizational dynamics are within a destination and the stronger interconnections between the components of the tourism system, so much more the chances of success in terms of market to a certain destination will be (Giannone, 2006). The importance of a systemic approach in the organization of tourism in an area and the importance of the territorial dimension are confirmed in Italy in the Law n. 135/2001 “Reform of national tourism legislation” which in art. 5 defines "Local Tourist Systems” (LTS). These constitute the reference model adopted for the reorganization of the Italian regional tourism sector and for the definition of the territorial tourist offer. The legislator’s intent was to promote the integration of tourism policies, on the one hand, and territorial government policies and economic development, on the other, and to find a synthesis in public-private planning where the common interest of institutional actors and entrepreneurs of a given local area converge. Each LTS is based on the idea of implementing tourism projects, but the same consideration can be extended to TDs, and it is not, as many believed, a new permanent body of local government which is replacing the abolished regional and provincial tourism authorities (Loy Puddu, 2012). The emphasis, therefore, seems to be more focused on the opportunities offered by tourism to regional development through the enhancement of systems and local networks, following the logic of bottom-up processes. In this framework local resources are considered strategic to reinforce the production capacity of a territory. Sicily moved in the same direction as the national law with the Regional Law n. 10/2005, which in art. 6 defines tourist districts as “homogeneous or integrated contexts including territorial areas belonging also to more provinces and characterized by offers of qualified tourist attractions and/or cultural sights and environmental goods, including agricultural products and local handicrafts”. By 1The reference data are from a survey carried out within the project PRIN 2007-2009 “Mobility of regional incoming tourism. Socio-economic aspects of behaviours and motivations”. Rivista Italiana di Economia Demografia e Statistica 193 using the term district the Sicilian Region wanted to emphasize the competitive advantages resulting from some territorial-economic conditions, defined in the literature as ‘district economies’ (Marshall, 1920; Becattini, 1989 and 2000)2. These are determined by the tendency towards spatial concentration of firms that operate on the same sector. They derive advantages from being close to each other in terms of reducing production and transaction costs, and increasing efficiency of production inputs. In this model the relationship between economy and the social system that structures the market functioning plays a key role. LTSs and TDs are based largely on the model of industrial districts, characterized by the localization of firms in the same area and a system of more or less complex relationships that link firms, territory and institutions. Both, in fact, are aimed at the tourist development of a territory, increasing product efficiency and destination competitiveness (Candela and Figini, 2005). However, if we consider the heterogeneity and complementarities of tourist firms, their interconnection with the institutions, the links that tourism has with other productive sectors and if it emphasizes the fact that firms – hotels, restaurants, service agencies, etc. – individually compete with each other but together determine the competitiveness of tourism in the same area, a suitable model to represent such a system is that of Porter’s cluster (Porter, 1998). In fact, often, the concepts of district, local system and cluster are used interchangeably. In this respect, the choice of Sicilian Region to use TD, rather than LTS, would seem only a matter of terminology. Yet, on closer examination, the term ‘district’ has a stronger content than ‘system’, for at least two aspects. First, the district invokes a narrow, well defined geographic area and, second, the district is the result of a spontaneous process of integration and relationships structured over time between firms, institutions and territory. Therefore, a district is created from an existing network over a territory, while the Sicilian regional law would seem to reverse this process, implicitly asserting that the district allows a territory to the system. Moreover, with regard to the first point, it should be noted that the Sicilian Region gives the opportunity to set up also ‘thematic’ districts, characterized by non-contiguous territories, geographically distant, but bound together by a same project. This may seem a contradiction in relation to the fact that one of the characteristics distinguishing a district is its organization within a circumscribed territory. A further critical element is the opportunity for a municipality to be part, at the same time, of a territorial TD and a thematic TD. In fact, this condition could imply some ambiguity in TD planning and implementation of project ideas. 2For a more detailed analysis of industrial districts in Italy, see also the contributions of Brusco (1991), Garofoli (1991), Sforzi (1991), Quadrio Curzio and Fortis (2002). 194 Volume LXVI n. 2 Aprile-Giugno 2012 Finally, the spatial configuration of some districts risks fragmenting tourism resources (e.g. those of the Baroque) and determining overlap in tourist offer of some areas. If so, then, the use of the term ‘district’ by the Sicilian Region to define territorial contexts with tourist value might appear to be a ‘force’, or perhaps just a word emptied of its real meaning, while the effects deriving from their institution may be very different from those anticipated. In fact, the risk is that a TD is organized not on the basis of a common project idea that its proponents would like to achieve, but on the basis of the economic and financial opportunities. 3. Demand analysis and territory competitiveness TDs are set up with the aim of promoting new models of territorial development, supporting activities and processes of aggregation and integration of tourist firms and local actors, in order to implement interventions for tourist offer qualification and improvement of tourist services. After a long bureaucratic process that, however, reveals a certain immaturity of territories in networking and defining common planning, it has now come to the recognition of, in total, 23 territorial and thematic TD proposals, defined on the basis of the aforementioned Decree n. 4/2010. In particular, art. 3 states, under penalty of inadmissibility, that each district must have a population of at