Adaptive cultural tourism in rural areas: a framework to support planners and decision-makers in a changing climate

Cultural tourism is emerging as a key-driver of socio-cultural regeneration and economic revitalization for rural areas. This opens new challenges around the need of valuing their cultural and natural resources through a coordinated territorial planning, to support the attractiveness of such territories while preserving rural identities and ensuring sustainable experiences for tourists. In such a context, accelerating climate change is raising urgent questions about the vulnerability of rural territories, strongly threatened by global warming and extreme events. Climate change may negatively impact tourism systems and resources through several direct and indirect pathways, influencing both supply and demand side. It has become evident that destinations must urgently learn how to adapt, manage climate risk and capitalize on new opportunities. Nevertheless, such concerns are rarely incorporated into territorial planning processes, and tourism adaptation responses are more often managed through short-term individual coping measures, rather than future-oriented, integrated and sustainable strategies. This thesis aims to contribute to the discussion on climate change adaptation of cultural tourism in rural areas, supporting a wider understanding of the role of territorial planning towards a more adaptive cultural tourism. Moving from the concept of cultural tourism and its role in rural regeneration, a structured literature review discusses research trends and gaps on cultural tourism-climate change nexus in rural areas. Thus, the thesis proposes a conceptual and methodological framework for supporting local decision-makers and stakeholders in planning adaptive cultural tourism. It combines data-based and community-based approaches for conducting a spatially explicit multi-hazard risk assessment and co-designing adaptive solutions. A case study in the Fiastra Valley (Marche Region, Italy) tests the framework, making evidence of the importance of cross-sectoral, inter-territorial and inter-institutional cooperation for adapting cultural tourism to climate change. Lastly, this dissertation emphasizes the potential of transdisciplinary and participatory research to bridge science – policy – society divide.