Improving the local development: the stakeholders’ point of view on Italian railway tourism

ABSTRACT

Railway tourism has been developed in several European countries. Although Italy has an important national railway heritage, local railway tourism is still in an early development stage. In 2021, research was conducted by the Department of Management of the University of Turin, which involved the key stakeholders in railway tourism, in order to explore and define strategies for further development. A mixed-method approach was used in defining the process in three stages: a focus group of experts to design a dedicated questionnaire, the Delphi method to conduct individual stakeholder interviews, and the Nominal Group Technique (NGT) for the presentation of survey results, and identification of stakeholders’ priorities. The results identified the key elements of the market and established players in the Italian railway tourism supply chain to implement operational strategies to develop this form of tourism, and in line with the interest of the younger generation. Italian railway tourism has considerable potential due to the cultural, historical, and scenic heritage of the railway lines which can be enhanced by operational organisations. Moreover, this tourism activity is a useful tool for economies and operators in the local areas.

KEYWORDS:

• Railway heritage
• local heritage
• old trains
• mixed method approach
• stakeholders

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Credit authorship contribution statement

Giovanni Peira: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft. Alessandro Bonadonna: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Riccardo Beltramo: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Writing – original draft.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grants from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or non-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Giovanni Peira

Giovanni Peira is an Associate Professor at the Department of Management of the University of Turin. In the last academic year (A.A. 22-23). He taught the following courses Operation Management, Eco Management of Tourism and Quality Management. His main research are in agri-food chains, product labeling, tools for enhancing the value of agri-food production, and food tourism. I have been scientifically responsible for 12 research projects. He has written over 150 publications.

Alessandro Bonadonna

Alessandro Bonadonna, PhD in Culture and Business, is Associate Professor at the Department of Management, University of Turin, Italy. His research interests include local food systems and sustainable tourism. He is a research member of several projects and his teaching activities are concerned with operations and supply chain management, food quality management and environmental technologies. He is a member of the Italian Academy of Commodity Science and the Research Centre on Natural Risks in Mountain and Hilly Environments (NATRISK). He has written more than 50 scientific papers and book chapters and he is co-author of more than 10 books.

Riccardo Beltramo

Riccardo Beltramo is full professor at the Department of Management, University of Turin. He is in charge of research on sustainable tourism in the section of Commodity Sciences. He has designed and implemented tourism development projects mainly in mountainous areas. He is co-teacher of Eco-Management of Tourism.