An e-Governance System for Managing Cultural Heritage in Urban Tourist Destinations: The Case of Genoa

Abstract: e-Governance is becoming a unique challenge to urban tourism destinations, and the role of city and metropolitan government in managing interactions between culture and tourism bodies is of growing importance. Given the complex nature of cities, the management of urban tourist destinations requires a participatory approach based on governance principles and ICT tools. This paper focuses on the development and application of a new geo-referenced e-participation tool for managing cultural heritage in urban tourist destinations. It is based on a ‘bottom-up’ development approach and a public participation process and it is used for promoting the role of social actors in the process of recognising territorial cultural heritage and its effective management benefiting the local community, citizens and the visitors. The main benefit of such approach is a working “compromise” between the image of the city as promoted by the decision-makers and the vision that the other social actors have of the locality and its interpretation. This approach also allows (re)discovering local identities, existing links with the place, its cultural and symbolic values, and to identify which e-services should be developed to improve access to cultural heritage and to valorise its intangible values. It is applied to the city of Genoa (Italy), as part of an on-going EU FP6 Project ISAAC “Integrated e-Services for Advanced Access to Heritage in Cultural Tourist Destinations”.