Paolo Costa

TOURISM IN EUROPEAN HERITAGE CITIES

Abstract Heritage cities attract many visitors, generating benefits and costs. When the costs exceed the benefits, tourism development is no longer sustainable, and interventions become necessary. In order to develop guidelines to help heritage cities manage their tourism more adequately, the tourism market and policy of seven art cities were analyzed: Aix-en-Provence, Amsterdam, Bruges, Florence, Oxford, Salzburg and Venice. It was shown that tourism is menacing not only the vitality of their local economies, but also the integrity of their heritage and the quality of life of their residents. Measures to control and guide visitor flows are urgently needed. In reality, tourism management in the heritage cities does not go much further than promotion.

Tourist Carrying Capacity: A Fuzzy Approach

Abstract This paper discusses the concept of tourist-carrying capacity of an urban cultural destination and presents a model for determining its optimal level. The model is then made operational within a “fuzzy” linear programming approach that is tested in the case of the historical center of Venice. The “fuzziness” of the model makes it possible to take into account the distribution of benefits and costs from tourism between the tourist-dependent and the tourist-independent resident populations who confront different categories of tourists and day-trippers.