Green and sustainable tourism paths. The experience of the "Terre di Siena" territorial ambit

Tourism is a phenomenon closely linked to environmental and territorial resources. If on the one hand, it requires natural resources, on the other, at the same time, it consumes them, consequently, a greater intensification of the phenomenon reduces the quality and availability of the same ones. If consider that natural assets are not infinite and mostly it's difficult to reproduce them (Pieroni, 2002, 2008), tourism is a phenomenon that would tend towards self-destruction in the absence of limitations, constraints and guiding principles. Starting from these considerations, on the one hand the awareness matures that even tourism can no longer ignore the conditions and principles that should guide its practices (Carta di Lanzarote, 1995; UNWTO, 2015), and on the other, institutions increase their commitment to the implementation of strategies capable of fostering a transition to sustainable, responsible and intelligent tourism (Parlamento Europeo, 2021). However, the problem goes beyond the mere environmental issue, because protection must also be extended to the intangible resources of tourist contexts, with particular attention to the cultures, traditions and history of the places, which too often, instead, are subjected to forms of exploitation or commodification. In this scenario, the debate on tourism, and its consequences, is increasingly looking at tourism practices focused on enhancing local contexts and cultures. In this perspective, the paper focuses on tourism development strategies aimed at the protection, rediscovery and enhancement of places, memories and local knowledge. Based on some concrete experiences, the study focuses on the action plans and practices implemented in these contexts. These cases express a change of vision and an approach aimed to promote "other" tourism and alternative paths which, in addition to encourage sustainable development, also gain relevance concerning to the experimentation of innovative practices and new governance models to manage the constant growth of tourism flows, in certain contexts, and the tourism phenomenon in general.