ABSTRACT
It is commonly acknowledged that tourism can play a strategic role in fostering local development and, from this perspective, increasing attention is being paid by policy-makers to the specific sector of cultural tourism. Even if the definition of cultural tourism is rather elusive — and, therefore, the related data are not always reliable — it is widely stressed that this segment of tourism, based on the tangible and intangible cultural endowment of a destination, shows an overall positive trend, almost everywhere. Among the claimed beneficial effects of cultural tourism, it is common opinion that it can contribute to reduce one of the main problems of tourism, i.e. its seasonality, with the related effects on sustainability. In this chapter, we investigate how seasonality is affected by the different features of cultural tourism supply and demand, using Sicily as a case study. First, we review the main issues related to cultural tourism definition and measurement, focusing attention on the relationship between cultural heritage tourism and cultural destinations listed in the World Heritage List. Second, using Sicily as a case study, we try to assess whether an outstanding cultural endowment, officially recognized and preserved by UNESCO, affects cultural tourism and makes a difference as far as seasonality is concerned. We also investigate different segments of cultural tourism demand, distinguishing between domestic and foreign tourists, to see whether they exhibit different behaviours as far as seasonality is concerned. Finally, we explore how the decision-making process, involving different public and private actors and different layers of government, can be designed to enhance the positive role of cultural tourism and to reduce seasonality.
