Motris. An history of mediterranean cooperation

Abstract

The Integrated Relational Tourism (IRT) arises as hypothesis of cautious using for tourist purposes of physical and immaterial resources of old towns and rural territories in Sicily. This hypothesis has been formulated during the town planning course by Leonardo Urbani at faculty of Architecture of Palermo in the ‘90s, focusing the attention to the Mediterranean cultural style old towns. In response to a meeting on the Mediterranean tourism in 1999 about the idea of a cultural tourism on cultural heritages, it has developed the idea to join to the material and immaterial cultural goods also the relational good developed subsequently by Stefano Zamagni. The testing of IRT has been !nanced by the Sicilian Region with the project Motris (Mapping of the Integrated Relational Tourism o"er in Sicily1). The IRT, in collusion with the objectives of territorial common cohesion, wants to provide an answer for the territorial integration of policies and experiences about the objectives of quali!cation of o"er and demand of a sustainable tourism and/or social, economic, cultural and environmental re-quali!cation, placing the human person to the centre of rationalization policies and valorisation of tourist o"er of local relational resources. The IRT identi!es itself as the border between the set of tourist activities taken in their drawing near the other productive human activities not only as regards to the other activities of the tertiary but also those of agriculture and industry. In the reference frame of innovation of the concept of sustainable tourism which is present in many international documents (OMT 1985, 1997, 1999; Lanzarote 1995)2, a research, application and training activity have been started over the last few years, which aims to refuse concretely in the insular territory, the quali!cation of the tourist o"er of local systems by the reinforcement of approaches derived by town and country planning.