Rural Development and Wine Tourism in Southern Italy

Tourism provides communities with an opportunity to display their region’s distinct and unique cultural and natural assets while creating employment and diversifying the regional economy. A diverse economy is one that can cope with the changes experienced in our current environment. Tourism is an industry like any other and requires sound planning and a firm commitment from the community to make it work. Like all economic activities the benefits of tourism may create social and environmental impacts which need to be managed through a partnership approach and appropriate planning at a local level. Wine sector has shown significant growth in the last decade and the related tourism activity has also increased, particularly in the Mediterranean countries. Wine tourism is defined as tourism in which the opportunity for wine related experiences contributes significantly to the reason for travel to the destination or to itinerary planning while at the destination. Wine tourism has been identified as sector that could be drivers for increased tourism in the Mediterranean region, both by attracting more visitors and extending the length of stay and spending of current visitors. The general purpose of the paper is to undertake a review of existing wine tourism activities, identify areas for growth and make recommendations with respect to an action plan that will develop wine, tourism and expand tourism growth in the Mediterranean region. Historically, in fact, in southern Italy viticulture has had role of great importance in agricultural field. From over 2000 years wine is made by traditional methods and especially in this area have place most of the autochthonous grape varieties. The development of wine tourism in conjunction with the spread of the industry has become important to the viability of regional economies and the industry's many smaller businesses. The policies that lie behind the development of the wine industry have important implications for the development of other industries in the Mediterranean area, notably: - as a model for the development of high-value industries on a sustainable basis in the agricultural sector; - as a model of collaborative development for other manufacturing industries