Community cooperatives: opportunities and tools for marginal areas
Giorgia DI ROSA, Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata" - Dipartimento di Storia, Patrimonio culturale, Formazione e Società, Italy
Ilaria GUADAGNOLI, Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata" - Dipartimento di Storia, Patrimonio culturale, Formazione e Società, Italy
Maria Grazia CINTI, Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata" - Dipartimento di Storia, Patrimonio culturale, Formazione e Società, Italy
Because of the pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, fragilities of marginal areas have conversely become strengths in terms of both active citizenship practices and local tourism development. The recent model of community cooperatives - in particular in these areas - fully meets the needs of local populations who organize themselves through bottom-up initiative to deal with the problems related to the growing social fragmentation by developing a local project for the benefit of the community itself.
The sudden spread of the virus and the first lockdowns substantially stopped the global tourist movement; in the meantime, in Italy we have witnessed the development of different tourism forms that could support the “sense of security” for the benefit of marginal areas. As a result, these spaces have become places of opportunity to carry out life, business and social projects, with a “bottom up” approach aimed at taking advantage of the occasion of greater visibility offered by the pandemic.
The empirical methodological approach is based on thematic insights of consolidated experiences concerning community cooperatives that have created good practices in the tourism sector. In particular, the state of the art in Italy is rich and wide-ranging despite this is a relatively recent legislative tool in many Italian counties.
The contribution is aimed to support the proposition that the creation of such organizational models, putting the needs of the local community at the centre, are also able to promote sustainable forms of tourism (e.g. slow, community, experiential, food and wine tourism). Furthermore, community cooperatives appear to have the ability to represent a tool of revitalization and innovation for the territories.
Keywords: bottom-up territorial development|tourism|community cooperatives|Marginal areas|resilience
A103386MC