Cultural Tourism Policy in the Metropolitan City of Venice: civic enterprises as a driver of sustainable development. Case study of the "Cao Rio" project.

This work analyzes the governance of cultural tourism in the Metropolitan City of Venice, with a specific focus on the agents involved in it and their role in the development of the sector. Culture tourism is one of the most important topics on the cultural governance agenda in Europe, especially in relation to sustainable city development. Venice is one of the most pertinent examples of a city in which many obvious problems in the tourism sector need to be addressed in order to achieve sustainability. Currently, the Venetian tourism industry is expanding rapidly, exploiting its heritage and impacting negatively on the city's social, economic, and cultural landscape. In the study, it is stated that tourism requires citizen-driven enterprises in order to be sustainable. The reason for this is that citizens are precisely those who generate value through the revitalization of their culture and local assets. They create public goods that they also require, and continue production, communication, and distribution by attracting new targets that share similar values as well. Therefore, civic enterprises and grassroots initiatives designed to develop and promote sustainable tourism in Venice will be examined. In this study, the aim is to collect the necessary data on them so that an attempt may be made to evaluate how well they can facilitate sustainable tourism development. With reference to the description of municipal governance, and the prevailing trends in policymaking, the present research will concentrate on sustainable tourism projects initiated by citizens, in particular the recently launched sports and cultural initiative in Venice, "Cao Rio". How many of them are operational? Does any system exist to consolidate such projects into one network, or should one be established? What are the actual changes they produce? How can their contribution to local policymaking be valued? The results of this research are presented in the form of a map of these civic agents. As a method of conducting this research, unstructured interviews, observations, and case studies are employed. The map provides data about civic actors, displays their relationships with other agents, and can serve as a basis for suggestions on how to assess the social impact they have on the industry that could lead to long-term sustainability.