Le «nuove geografie» del turismo. Le prospettive del settore in Basilicata

The article aims at analysing the tourism development in Basilicata, a region with an interesting tourist potential, but still characterized by a limited competitiveness. The starting point is a reflection on the transition from the “geography of tourism” to the “geographies of tourism”, in order to stress not only the variety of the subjects, but also the multiplicity of approaches, methods and scales of the analysis. Firstly, the development of “geographies of tourism” is approached from a theoretical point of view, putting in evidence the main issues that today brighten up the national and international debate on the tourist phenomenon. The second part of the article is dedicated to the tourism trends in the Italian Mezzogiorno that, though presenting a good stock of tourist and material capital, still shows relevant limits to the tourism development. In the third part of the article, the focus moves on the Basilicata region: after an overall view of the tourism at the regional scale, the news introduced by the tourism planning are analysed in depth. At the end, the five Local Tourist Systems are investigated in detail and utilized to examine the potential and the critical elements that come out by the study of the many tourisms which make up the Basilicata supply.