Assignment About Tourism Management

Read the case on   https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/travel/matera-basilicata-italy-southern-world-heritage-city.html.

Describe and evaluate the region’s natural and cultural assets.

Which of these assets would you emphasize and why?

How, specifically would you advocate for tourism, given the regional and local opposition to tourism. This opposition may be summed up by some of the following quotes:

Mayor Raffaello De Ruggieri:

“We don’t want tourists.”

“We don’t want to be occupied by tourists,”

“Tourism, will deplete a city of its soul — and this city has a prehistoric soul”

“This city has been alive for 8,000 years,” he told me. “But it has always been poor.”

Mr. Kihlgren, local hospitality manager:

“Tourism screws up the identity of a place. The only way to solve this contradiction is to make sure you are obsessive about the identity of the place.”

Mr. Adduce, President of the Matera Basilicata 2019:

“I will be brutal: We do not want tourists. It should not be, ‘Let’s see a church and eat pasta and try those crunchy red peppers and leave a few pieces of plastic behind.’”

“For the exhibitions next year, Matera will sell passes — 19 euros, good for one year. The visitors will be temporary cultural inhabitants, and they will be asked to leave a personal item behind. At the end of the year, these items will become their own exhibition.”

Francesco (local inhabitant):

Basilicata is a hard but beautiful life,” One side of me thinks it’s important for the world to discover it. The other side knows the Lucani (the alternative name for the people from the region) don’t want a connection with the rest of the world.”