Slow tourism for slow cities. An eco-compatible path in urban tourism.

The paper analyses slow tourism as a new eco-compatible urban brand. In last five years, it has turned into a more intensive tourism demand of eco-compatibility and its recent spreading has been intertwined with slow cities network. The paper moves from results of a comparative research led on sixty-eight cities, whose aims explore the basic components which have promoted slow tourism’ success in each territory, making it transferable in medium-sized cities, too. From overall research results, two findings have been selected: the first one marks the sense of place, read as request of local authenticity by slow tourists in all visited places, both rural and urban ones; the second finding stresses how the slow tourism demand is based on eco-compatible aspects, making it an interesting urban brand by sustainable footprint.