DAI TURISMI AL TURISMO INTEGRATO: IL PIANO STRATEGICO DELLA CITTÀ METROPOLITANA DI PALERMO

Tourism, today, is experiencing a phase of rediscovery as a lever of territorial development with reference to different types of areas such as inland, rural, protected or coastal. However, the tourism strategies that characterize each of these turn out to be substantially self-referential with the result that they fail to create synergies with other territorial areas. Starting from this perspective, this paper aims to highlight the need for a different approach that, starting from the heterogeneity of the dimensions and potentials of tourism, goes in the direction of an integrated approach capable, that is, of relating the different areas, rather than conceiving them as entities in their own right, favoring the flows and exchanges of goods and people and the interconnection between different areas. With this end in mind, the case of the Metropolitan City of Palermo was analyzed, which to date is characterized by a definite divide between the coastal and inland tourist areas but which proposes, as highlighted in its Strategic Plan, to resolve this limitation by implementing an integrated tourism system capable of enhancing the different heritages of the territory and generating, at the same time, the creation of local communities.