Discussion
Today’s culture of tourism relies on a renovated and more sensitive environmental awareness aimed at a reflection of the behaviour of the tourists who have to be more respectful of nature and the cultural heritage (Figure 4 and Figure 5).
At the beginning of the new millennium, the change of cultural attitudes should determine the change of behaviours; so, in Italy, it is important to maintain a qualitative tourist offer. This is very important for the so-called farm holiday or agro-tourism; it is having great economic success but it has often put an uncontrolled and very strong pressure on the rural zones and in areas characterised by a good level of natural attractions; as a matter of fact these areas are not yet ready to give hospitality to a massive tourist flow (Figure 6).
On the other hand this is not only an Italian problem but the whole of Europe that has to accept more and more responsibility for the tourist impact on the environment.
The natural peculiarities and the high biodiversity level are a big tourist potentiality, especially in the context of a new nature-culture relationship. This is possible by means of a new interpretation of the biodiversity concept, linking the natural biodiversity with the cultural biodiversity, a result of human history.
The new tourist culture has to aim at a new “tourist ethic” relating the operators to tourists, both considering their own expectations and the ecological necessities of the territory.
A key factor, but also limited for the environmental and cultural tourism, is the “carrying capacity” of a tourist area.
Therefore the tourist offer and the tourist developmental plans must be integrated in a wider socioeconomic context, linked to a correct policy and management of transports, through the creation of real ecotourist corridors; they allow for the decompression of the overloaded areas, and at the same time they determine the conditions for the development of the marginal and underdeveloped areas, which are equally endowed with natural and cultural resources.
The protection and the recovery of the cultural heritage of a site, the development of tourist activities and the economic recovery are strictly linked. As a matter of fact it is possible to transform a town in a protected and productive system for environmental and cultural tourism; this town should have a city centre rich in historical monuments and a landscape rich in nature but degraded and continually offended by traffic, waste, pollution of various kinds.
The strategies for an education in environmental tourism can be summarized as shown in Figure 7.
According to the present market demands, tourism, aimed at the enhancement of the territory and its cultural heritage, must have a global approach considering the recovery of the anthropological, archaeological, historical and architectural aspects as well as the naturalistic characteristics and the traditional activities of the sites, all aimed at a new opportunity of a qualitative, before an economic, development one of the local populations.
So environmental tourism (in our opinion a better definition than ecotourism) arises conforming with continuous development.
This new definition of environmental tourism should include and overcome the concept of ecotourism, durable tourism, naturalistic tourism, green tourism and rural tourism.
Eco-tourism originated in North America in the 1980s, after the fashion of the naturalistic tourism in the wild sites.
The Ecotourism Society (USA) defines ecotourism in an area not very much disturbed by humans as a tourism that contributes to the protection of nature and the well-being of the local inhabitants.
Durable tourism is also the result of the debate, during the Conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, on the concept of sustainable development applied to tourist activities.
As a matter of fact by durable or sustainable tourism development it is meant every type of development, settlement or tourist activity that respects and protects the natural, cultural and social resources in the long term, and contributes to the economic development and to the well-being of the people living, working or staying in these areas (Charter of Durable Tourism).