Low-carbon tourism—technical, economic and management project of a greenway, for enhancing inner areas of the cilento national park, italy

Abstract

In the light of recent emergencies represented by climate change and global warming, with the consequent policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this research aims at offering a response to the need for decarbonization of anthropization processes of territories, on a building and urban scale. This study elaborates a methodology, according to an integrated qualitative-quantitative approach, which combines the strategic need for sustainable mobility with the need to enhance the value of natural and environmental interesting places, typical of the Mediterranean area and in particular the ones which represented the heart of Magna Graecia. This strategy is implemented through a growing mobility offer in recent years: sustainable cycling tourism, which is included in the wider and more widespread strategic action of greenways. However, these strategies do not often meet the interests of the public administration, which is refractory to face great costs in exchange for a hypothetical return on investment, in the long term; the result is the abandonment and degradation of territories characterized by a remarkable naturalistic, landscape and environmental value. The aim of this study, therefore, is to provide operators in the sector (public administration, Cilento National Park Authority, economic operators, etc.) with a decision-maintenance tool, through the definition of priority criteria for interventions, according to an economic sustainability approach of the intervention and adopting an integrated qualitative-quantitative methodology. The intervention, as a whole, involves a cycle path of about 600 km, passing through 70 countries of the territory. Therefore, assuming the impossibility of being carried out at the same time, as a whole, it has been divided into 23 functional lots: the methodology intends, precisely, to define the priority and necessity criteria that determine the classification of importance of the 23 routes (sub-interventions), identified in this study. © MDPI AG. All rights reserved.