A Modeling Approach for Estimating the Attractive Capacity of Walking

Pedestrian paths play a fundamental role in the socio-economic development of an area; not only do they represent a sustainable transport mode but they constitute a means of discovering the territory and local communities. The development of pedestrian paths has an important impact on the valorisation of the territory and can help promote rural and thematic tourism. However, a hiking route can be more or less attractive in relation to some characteristics perceived by potential users. For example, in an urban or extra-urban tourist itinerary, the length, duration, number and variety of monumental sites encountered constitute evaluation factors. Analyzing the attractiveness of a route or trail may therefore be interesting, i.e. the demand that can be intercepted for tourism purposes, and to this end, it appears essential to identify which are the significant variables and their weight in the tour planning phase. The paper presents the specification of a model for estimating the attractiveness of the routes and trails in an area. A case study, representative of a regional context, is also proposed which allows comparing the level of attractiveness of different zones with respect to existing itineraries.