Slow Travel Project for Enhancing Territories: Motivations and Directions

Every project should follow an idea, a theoretical and intentional framework orienting the sense of its practical actions. Nevertheless, in many cases the project comes before then the motivations. This can be a mistake, especially in cases of regional projects affecting policies, people and territory.Giving priority to the idea makes the project more effective and people and institutional stakeholders involved more aware. This is the reason why the project VENTO, the proposal of a long cycle-tourist path in Italy, is born firstly by elaborating its motivations and objectives and, later, by designing the bike track. VENTO has the precise aim of regenerating marginal areas thanks to the introduction of the paradigm of the slow travel: it is a model of sustainable development with the shape of a cycle path. This paper analyses motivations and goals of the project and explains in which sense VENTO can be considered as a project of territory, as a way to increase local green jobs, as a political manifesto, as a new deal for investing in infrastructures, as a proposal for travelling and not for spending just few hours, as a vernacular opportunity, as a anti-fragility policy. These ideas have sustained the process of realization of the project

Integrated valorization of cultural heritage: A case study of the Cammino Dei Monaci route

The convergence between the concept of sustainable development and the theoretical framework of cultural-heritage preservation underlines some key issues: the tangible and intangible nature of benefits associated with cultural capital; intergenerational equity meant as the fair distribution of wealth, utility and resources among generations, in addition to the intra-generational one; the precautionary principle; and the multidimensionality of cultural heritage. As public goods, non-rival and non-exclusive, cultural resources are characterized by the presence of various categories of value that contribute to determining the Total Economic Value (V.E.T.). Given the risk of being under-supplied in the economy if these kind of goods are disregarded from appraisals, specific evaluation methodologies have been introduced with the aim of assigning a monetary value. In this context, the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) has been applied to estimate the economic benefits generated by the realization of a bicycle and pedestrian trail, considered as a non-marketed and complex good for the wide, and sometimes divergent, range of interests and values (economic, aesthetic, cultural, educational, political) attached to them. Consistently with the guidelines provided by the NOOA Panel, the CVM survey has been developed by the use of the Double Bounded Dichotomous model. In the absence of market prices that express the value of the benefits generated by this slow mobility project, respondents have shown a propensity for the implementation of the hypothetical scenario under valuation, thus demonstrating great awareness of the overall benefits associated with the project

Environmental policies in European aviation: a stakeholder management perspective

Aviation contributes to economic and social development, but air traffic congestion and aircraft-related gas emissions damage the environment; hence, appropriate policies should be introduced to ensure sustainable growth. This paper highlights the interdependence of environmental reforms in aviation by thoroughly investigating two major European policy schemes, i.e. the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and the Single European Sky. Emphasis is given on policy aspects of multi-stakeholder governance. Based on focus group interviews with thirty-nine senior managers and in-depth interviews with seven experts, transaction costs are highlighted and a stakeholder power vs. interest grid is developed to identify and, most importantly, to address governance failure, thus effectively linking different aviation policies in a holistic manner