1 Which Tourism to Regenerate Marginal Areas?

Tourism has been considered as a key strategic sector for development via the European Structural and Investment Funds (COM 2010). In an interesting volume elaborated by OECD (2006), tourism has been seen also as a tool to enhance the growth of many European regions, in particular, the less developed and marginal regions,Footnote 1 due to its considerable spillover and potential for job creation, particularly for young people. Actually, especially for those areas where traditional jobs, such as agriculture, livestock, and handicraft were gradually abandoned, tourism can become the most important sector (Pelc 2018). However, we cannot stop wondering about which tourism can do so in a sustainable way and with which principles and goals.

The combination of territorial marginality and tourism has been widely studied both in the academic debate and within the public policies that are proposing development strategies for fragile areas. Tourism, as a matter of fact, is seen as a way to enhance and exploit the territorial capital and it is proposed as a valid strategy to revitalize marginal territories (Espon 2017). Also in the most recent Italian policy regarding this, the National Strategy for Inner Areas, tourism is one of the five lines of local development, together with “active territorial/environmental sustainability protection, valorization of agriculture and food system, activation of renewable energy supply chains and know-how and crafts” (UVAL 2014: 21). In the Italian debate, the most recent attempts to study tourism as a trigger for the development of fragile areas was carried out by Meini (2019) and Ferrari and Cavuta (2018). Actually, the idea that tourism can help in the development of marginal areas is not new, also applied to the context of the Italian inner areas (Formez 1980). At the same time, already in the past, there was some skepticism about the idea that tourism could be the panacea of all the problems of marginal areas. In this respect, Manlio Rossi Doria, the Italian father of the inner area concept, wrote:

We must therefore muster the courage to look at the mountain’s issues with new eyes, laws and institutions. Only in this way will they be solved. Everything else is an illusion, at the bottom of which is abandonment through the landslide of inexorable exodus. Illusion, in particular, is indeed the fig-leaf that is much discussed: mountain tourism. Tourism is, of course, a valuable thing, that in some cases will allow a certain development of privileged areas, but for most of the southern mountain area it will carry a very limited and defined weight. […] We must recognize that, except in few cases, tourism is not a solution but an illusion.

(Rossi Doria 1982/2003: 98)

In sum, Rossi Doria points out that tourism cannot be the unique solution for all the problems affecting marginal areas. To this, we must add that, even where tourism is an effective sector of success and economic growth, the potentially negative impact must not be overlooked. The concept of sustainability related to tourism, which gives life to so-called “sustainable tourism”, can seem like an oxymoron, as tourism, an activity that exploits resources, and can be not considered completely excluded from the negative impact on the territory (environmental, economic, social, and cultural impact). In a recent publication, Pelc and Koderman (2018) have collected several essays in order to discuss the positive effects of tourism in marginalized context and even the risks to take into account. In truth, in their introduction, they present the ambiguity of the role of the tourism, by explaining that

Tourism as such seems to be very promising and often imposes big expectations in areas with developmental problems. Especially in backward rural areas with relatively unspoiled nature and poor accessibility to industrial, commercial and residential centers, tourism is often seen as a redeeming developmental activity which may be highly overrated. Tourism cannot be a substitute for uncompetitive agriculture or missing industry. There are only few special places where the majority of the local population can live from the revenues from tourism. Not every single rural area can expect such an outcome from tourism development. However, tourism can play an important role in regional development when it is combined with the development of other sectors. (Pelc and Koderman 2018: 22)

This awareness suggests, therefore, that every regeneration proposal that relates to tourism will have to always establish a threshold that cannot be overcome, for territories to live on, although not completely, on tourism. In this respect, Marco D’Eramo affirms

Until the influx of visitors exceeds this limit, tourists use services and benefits that are designed for residents. Beyond this threshold, on the other hand, residents are forced to use services that were developed for tourists. (D’Eramo 2017: 78)

Tourism is therefore a potential sector for the development of marginal areas (and more). But it must be handled with care. An interesting paper by Salvatore et al (2018) examines the relationship between what they call the rural peripherality and the tourism transition in the Italian context. They develop a critical analysis of the role that contemporary tourism can play in peripheral rural contexts as a driver of change. In this study, the authors see in new forms of locally based tourism, alternative to mass tourism, an opportunity for peripheral areas. The interesting thing here is that they speak not about tourism in general, but rather they specify the typology of tourism that can be suitable for the fragile territories. This seems to suggest that marginal areas, because of their nature and their fragile condition, need a specific consideration and a model of development that is consistent with their characteristics. In this sense, the question is which type of tourism, as a possible model of development, is more appropriate to the marginal area’s context. In this article, a reflection on so-called slow tourism, which we will define, is proposed. The idea that slow tourism could be suitable to develop marginal areas has already been investigated both in Italian (Manella 2017; Nocifora et al. 2011) and in foreign literature (Matos 2004). All these studies have in common the idea that marginal territories, more than others, seem to be destined to slowness, offering a nonconformist type of tourism. These territories, described as “slow” (Lancerini 2005), can become icons of beauty and good quality of life. In this respect, the slowness of these places, from a negative meaning, can be turned into care for the environment and the landscape, a high quality of life, a little known historical and architectural heritage of quality, a strong local identity, a taste of local quality products.

2 Slow Tourism: A Collection of Definitions

The idea of so-called slow tourism is quite well cited. Nevertheless, taking for granted its meaning is a mistake and a review of the literature can easily demonstrate that there is no shared definition about what “slow tourism” is. First of all, slow tourism and slow travel are usually confused, even if there are some differences between them as we will see in the next paragraph. Moreover, depending on the aspect we decide to emphasize, we will find different ways to intend what slow tourism is. We have identified three different approaches by which slow tourism or slow travel have been defined: (1) in opposition to traditional and mass tourism; (2) as tourism with low-carbon impact; and (3) as an experience where the most relevant aspect is the authenticity of the journey.

Starting from the first, several studies focus on the idea that slow tourism is an attitude, an ethical choice, in opposition to traditional tourism, the so-called “mass tourism”. The most influential exponent of this theory was Krippendorf (1987). In his text, The Holiday Makers, he expressed his doubts about the sustainability of mass tourism. Many of the approaches suggested by Krippendorf over 25 years ago (such as holidays at home or nearer to home, an emphasis on locality, and diversity) could be included in the recent idea of slow tourism and travel. Slow tourism, as a matter of fact, is usually seen in contrast with the negative externalities of mass tourism, which is characterized by the extensive structural and infrastructural development of a territory based principally on economic interests, with an adequate consideration of environmental and social factors. As McGrath and Sharpley (2017) explain, the slow travel narrative focuses on the so-called “art of travel” (De Botton 2003), in opposition to the loss of such “art” in the case of “mass tourism”.

We have collected in Table 1 some definitions that we have found in line with this approach.

Table 1 Some definitions where slow tourism is seen as an alternative to mass tourism. In all these definitions, it is possible to note the use of the words “new”, “alternative”, and “different”. They highlight how the slow tourism approach is in opposition to traditional tourism
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The second approach emphasizes that the mode of transport should have lower environmental impact and less travel, the main features of slow tourism. This aspect focuses on alternatives to air and car travel, such as trains, busses, cycling, walking, boat both to and within a destination, and where travel to and from a destination becomes part of the holiday. From this perspective, slow tourism is seen as an environmental choice in order to reduce the huge amount of carbon emissions related to the traditional tourism sector (Dickinson and Lumsdon 2010). From this perspective, slow tourism excludes the three main transport modes associated with contemporary tourism development: the car, the cruise liner, and the airplane. In addition, this approach is also related to the choice of destination that should be close to home or reachable by low-carbon methods of transport. This appears in contrast with tourism travel distance that recently has grown as travel speeds have increased and travel costs decreased.

In Table 2, some definitions of slow tourism/travel according to this second view.

Table 2 Definitions where slow tourism is seen as low-carbon impact tourism
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Finally, the third approach defines slow tourism mainly as a tool to experience the territory, where visitors engage in a deeper experience of place. In this sense, slow tourism is mainly an experience of the territory that involves people, services, and locations (Westwood et al. 2006). Moving slowly in the territory, traveling slowly, implies immersion in the environment, where participants become physically a part of the experience itself. In this sense, slow tourism can be read under the lens of Pine and Gilmore’s (1999) matrix of experience realms.

It is not surprising that one kind of tourism that seems to be correlated to the idea of slow tourism is the “experiential tourism”. Edgell and Swanson (2019) report an interesting definition made by the organization “Nature and Outdoor Tourism Ontario” (Canada), namely:

Experiential tourism has become the current term that encompasses a variety of tourism and traveler categories […] where activities are environmentally sensitive, displaying respect for the culture of the host area and looking to experience and learn rather than merely stand back and gaze. Experiential tourism involves active participation, involvement, even immersion.

Table 3 shows some definitions of slow tourism/travel where the main aspect is the experience of the place.

Table 3 Definitions where slow tourism is seen as experience of the territory
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3 Slow Tourism or Slow Travel?

As we touched on earlier, when considering the difficulty in defining slow tourism the difference between slow tourism and slow travel must also be pondered. Based on how the “slow” experience is created, during the journey or in the place of arrival, we can distinguish, respectively, slow travel and “slow tourism”. Leed (1992) helps us to better understand the issue by introducing the three stages of the journey, well described by Lavarini and Scramaglia:

The first stage is the departure. The stage of abandonment of what we know and cherish to face the unknown. The second is the passage, meaning the path that serves as a link between the act of departing and the act of arriving. The third is, precisely, the arrival, or, in other words, when we try to integrate with the place of destinations. […] According to Leeds, the cornerstone of the travel experience is the passage, toward which less and less interest is shown nowadays, gradually reducing itself to a merely symbolic aspect of many journeys. (Lavarini and Scramaglia 2017: 79)

Even in what concerns the slow attitude of journeys there are some doubts regarding the most important phase of the journey, whether the slow experience happens during the passage or the arrival. According to Lavarini and Scramaglia (2017), traveling slowly can allow us to rediscover the passage phase of a journey, to live the territory that is being crossed and to engage with the local culture with numerous activities. Slowness turns every journey into a journey of discovery, as Bodei (2009) defines it, and this helps us reveal the nature and history of things that meet, establishing a strong relationship between the I and the landscape. This vision can be particularly interesting especially in the case of marginal areas that are often completely bypassed by fast destination tourism where, indeed, the final destination is the objective and not the journey itself. On the contrary, travel can be seen as integral to the tourist experience, and, in some instances, it might be the main purpose (Lumsdon 2006). Moreover, the idea of tourism implies a consumption where people, the tourists are consumers. On the contrary, travel can be seen more as an experience, where people are not seen only as consumers, rather as travelers or, as Tim Ingold (2007) states, as wayfarers that are discovering the territory. As McGrath and Sharpley (2017) note, within the slow tourismFootnote 2 concept, the focus shifts away from the mode of transportation used and distance traveled to the product being supplied and consumed.

Even if slow travel and slow tourism are usually used as synonyms (Dickinson and Lumsdon 2010; Fullagar et al. 2012), we decide to assume the idea of the slow travel rather than tourism, it being more in line with the idea of experience rather than consumption, of the journey rather than the final destination, of the travelers rather than the tourists.

4 The Slowness (H)as Value

At this point, is it appropriate to wonder why slow tourism, which we will, henceforth, call “slow travel”, is at the center, more than other topics, of the consideration of this essay. Our interest starts from having seen slowness as a strategic resource to design regeneration for non-metropolitan territories, especially in the more peripheral areas, thanks to the power it has in allowing the discovery of places. And if slowness, contrary to speed whose only goal is to suppress distance, generates closeness (Bodei 2009), this discovery, this slow attitude toward travel can become a chance for development for those that are crossed and those it crosses. Slowness is therefore the form of energy that we are interested into design travel, not merely tourism, and it is appropriate for marginalized areas and not vice versa. If we invert the order of the factors, in addition the result will change in the face of every theory: from travel/tourism + slowness we have slowness + travel/tourism. Knowing how to look to slowness first and then to any form of travel or tourism can become the antidote, potential though never definitive, with which we can avoid or limit the consumerist tendencies typical of quick, hit-and-run practices.

This consideration is generated, therefore, by what slowness can teach tourism, especially in an age so taken over by the myth of speed. The proposal is to rehabilitate the concept of slowness from a synonym of backwardness (Rosa 2015) and waste (of time, money, energy) to the pivot of a possible, desirable, lasting, alternative model of development compared to a present where “everyday life is a sea that engulfs us with requests” (Rosa, 2015). Even in free time, this can happen if speed imposes a way to function in the world, which is made up of frenetic experiences, rapid and fixed successions, the need to fill every second with new and different facts.

To introduce any consideration on slowness, we must therefore face the fact that there is a speed limit under which we can define slowness, and over which there is no slowness. Two interpretations from different times and contexts aid us in this. The first, oldest, and international interpretation is by Ivan Illich and was written in his famous book Energy and Equity (1973), at the time of the first great energy crisis in modern times, a time when Illich understood that speed could be a discriminating factor that could limit social inclusion, contrary to slowness that did not present this limit.

“Every time a public vehicle has gone beyond 25 km an hour equity has diminished, while the scarcity of time and space increased” (Illich 1973/2006: 19).

The second, more recent and Italian, is by Ermanno Rea, who is following a slow journey along the Po river, writes:

Twenty kilometers per hour are an ideal speed, as things that fall within our gaze can appear both concrete and fake, material and immaterial. Twenty kilometers per hour are a sort of “golden” length of time for any touristic experience that desires both plastic certainty and archetypes, real things but also everything that seems to be hiding, and perhaps does indeed hide, behind real things. (Rea 1996/2017: 155).

From these two considerations, we can draw a limiting value of speed below which the area of slowness lies. 20–25 km/h is a speed that can easily be achieved and maintained physically or using a modest quantity of energy: on foot, by bicycle, canoe, small motor or sailboats, by horseback or pack-mule, and so on. If this is the speed limit and these are the possible forms of movement, we can now focus on what the advantages of slowness are.

  1. 1.

    Slowness has its trails

Low speed is still a speed, connected to a movement that makes its way through locations that belong to geographies. Every slow movement follows a trace or a line or a beam of lines that are themselves within a plan which, if we look closely, is the territory. As we will see, the lines can be short or long, wide or narrow, continuous or disconnected, sloping or flat, well or badly accessorized. The features of the trail influence the movement experience of our slow traveler. The lines can be ancient trails like medieval paths in Europe or natural trails like the banks of a river or specifically planned and created routes: paths, bike routes, tracks, channels, bridleways, or other types borrowed from what the region has to offer, such as dirt roads, embankments, sheep tracks, shores, cliffs, docks, headlands, and more. The ability to read, learn, and compose is one with slowness; we compose as we make our way on the path.

  1. 2.

    Slowness is a lens

In Italian, the world slowness, “lentezza”, includes within it the word “lente”, lens: the tool that magnifies everything we see, that makes what would otherwise elude us visible, and that allows us to focus on what would otherwise be out of focus. It is curious that this particular lens is contained within a slowed down word, almost as to say that its contrary, speed, does not allow us to capture the blurry backdrops and “patches of color”, as Aldous Huxley (1989) called them. Slowness allows us to fully savor the complexity of the vision that is made up of feeling, selection, and perception. When moving in a hurry, the feeling we often call fleeting prevails, as it escapes without leaving anything. Slowness, instead, allows us to dwell on particulars that we can therefore learn and recognize (selection) to then interpret, through the cultural experience we gain, to the point of perceiving them completely. Slowness is therefore a teaching tool and mental energy because it feeds memory, a vitamin in turn for perception.

  1. 3.

    Slowness weighs nothing

Lightness is another specific feature of slowness. It relates to the low environmental impact of slowness related to the use practices, the service structures, and the infrastructures. Lightness is the reference principle to which slowness looks to for its environmental responsibility. If a path, a track, a host structure, a footpath, the waste management, or the food and water supply want to be part of a slowness project, they will also need to be light, in other words thought out and created in order to not weigh on the environment.

  1. 4.

    Inclusion and accessibility

Because of slow speed, the spectrum of people that can approach and practice this way of moving is broadened, as it does not require an expensive vehicle, nor particular abilities, high financial availability, competitive training, and costs to access the infrastructures. Slowness naturally incorporates an excellent potential for social inclusion, a quality that is highly interesting for a plan of territorial regeneration.

  1. 5.

    Travel “in between”

Slow, continuous, and linear movement feeds upon stories that are collected step by step, and which end up writing the plot of stories that are created on the way back. It’s a continuous experience of vicinity with what is encountered. In the perspective of speed, the journey to reach a destination is seen as an obstacle and a waste of time. In many cases, transport is simply seen as an accessibility tool linking destinations to source markets (Prideaux 2000). For those who practice speed, slowness is a source of anxiety and a problem, as it is something that gets between them and the destination, both in the way there and back. They do not experience the journey; they endure it (Ingold 2007). It is clearly perceived as a travel cost, not a travel benefit. Goodwin and Frances (2003) find that slow travel could be interpreted as a form of ethical purchasing behavior. This involves applying additional criteria to the typical consumer behavior perspective. Indeed, travel is usually modeled as a cost to be minimized, both in terms of time and financial outlay. Based on such models, slow travel would not be seen as a rational decision, as it can take longer and cost more, especially in the current era of low-cost airlines.

  1. 6.

    The redemption of the time

The concept of slow is seen also as a reaction to the cult of speed. McGrath and Sharpley (2017) affirm that it is with the inherent fast nature of many Western cultures that leisure, unhurriedness, and slowness are becoming increasingly attractive concepts. The modernity of this present time has accustomed us to pressing on the accelerator, trying to fill every moment with more actions within a time unit, but without ridding us of that sense of time loss that Hartmud Rosa calls “time famine” that degrades and depresses us (Rosa 2015). Technology simply helps us deceive ourselves in thinking we are optimizing time that, despite this, is not as free as before. In slowness, this happens less or not at all, and time belongs to us again. Deciding what to do with our time goes back to being a great and satisfying form of power (Sepulveda 2013). During slow travel those who slow down win and those who speed up loose, contrary to what happens in urban geographies where speed is “the prevailing social norm” (Rosa 2015) and those who do not adapt to it are marginalized. This reconquering of time benefits every person who practices slowness, be it a traveler or a dweller, even in diverse ways, and it is therefore a precious material for a territorial project and a slow travel project we want to design.

5 Slow Travel: From Definition to Design

In our attempt to define slow travel, we realized that what we were thinking was more along the lines of a journey. A journey where the tools of slowness impose a rhythm that can generate benefits in those who practice it and also the places it is practiced in. All of this, however, brings us back to a very defined choice: designing slowness as a multi-goal practice that is capable of regenerating the more marginalized areas, the people who in time have detached from an intense experience of landscapes due to the habit of speed, and also a concept of mobility that is ever more bent to the idea of transport, more focused on destinations than on journeys. Practicing slowness allows us, in fact, to activate a secret and complex tie with memory, ours and of the places, to which a combination of speed oblivion is countered (Kundera 1995). Going slow does not mean lagging behind, as modernity’s catchphrases try to convince us incessantly. On one hand, it means without a doubt resisting a world where everything is too fast (Sepulveda 2013), but also once more finding the intensity of memory, the fascination of reflection, the joy of observation, and the relationship with others and things. We do not intend slowness as a proposal for a decrease or reduction of our own rhythm at any cost, but as “an invitation to focus on the essential, to review our priorities, to listen to what they can tell us, on what matters to us, truly” (Pons 2019). Speed, on the contrary, is inversely proportional to the intensity of oblivion: we miss things, they blend together, they disappear, they do not stick to us, and they are impossible to memorize because our brain is a slow machine (Maffei 2014) despite its thrilling rapidity. We have no time to see what is around us, but only to move straight on. Speed consumes us and makes us consumers of the sole destinations that, within a logic of mass tourism, must multiply and impress us to increasingly satisfy us. The tourism that is generated is an alienating one that fails to create a relationship between us and the landscape rather than with scripts and which is very similar to a single philosophy of the ephemeral and of self-satisfaction. Slowness is on the other hand a rekindling even beyond itself (Christin 2019) as long as that beyond is legible and therefore understandable.

Designing slowness means adopting a philosophy that is the basis of an idea of travel that then ambitiously constitutes the foundation on which a proposal for development of the territory and the individual is perched. But from philosophy, one must progress to practice, if the aim that is moved by this consideration is to imagine a blueprint for development that is valuable to marginal areas. Designing slowness means creating a form to give it substance. This form is, in our view, represented essentially by a line: slow, long, continuous, in the open air and light. A line is to rehabilitate a travel philosophy where time is taken to discover unexpected beauty. A line materially keeps together, sews together, and unveils the many lost and dispersed beauties, giving them a voice, history, and stories, because “giving shape to a length of time is the requirement of beauty, but it is also that of memory” (Kundera 1995: 45). Line, beauty, memory added to which the fact that slowness needs to be pleasantly practicable, though with a certain amount of effort—effort helps us to focus—because the pleasure of a bicycle ride or a walk facilitates the reactivation of will that is the key to understanding the value of things that flow beside us, within the landscapes and the landscapes themselves. Understanding things requires overcoming a struggle of will, more than of the intellect. An understanding needs to be rid of the dust of banality and oblivion to go beyond the obvious that removes flavor from everything. But, again, to let go of the obvious it is necessary to undertake journeys of discovery (Bodei 2009). This is why, within the idea of the project, we are proposing in this paper, this set of four—line, beauty, memory, and pleasure—is grouped together like legs that support a chair, which in turn represents the territorial project within which the discovery journey exists; a journey which needs to happen freely (the back of the chair) taking advantage of a simple, clean, and accessible trace, where travelers stop and start wherever, and however their sensitivity takes them, not following a script. Due to all this, we find that we cannot define tourism or slow travel, but we can take a renewed interest toward a slowness that finds meaning and a regenerative role in the territorial designing process. This has convinced us to focus our attention first on the paradigm of slowness, as a potential activator of a proposal of territorial discovery, and only later of cycling or tourism, two potential implementations of this proposal. This proposal, in the form of a cycle path, a walkway, and any other type of path, cannot be carried out by chance; it needs a designing intent, a new territorial scale, technical knowledge and public objectives, policies and the definition of roles among contractors, citizens and associations, urban planning, and territorial government. Nor can it happen by using the old-fashioned rhetoric of transport or road engineering, as today, in order to plan a line, slow, open, and viable, various contributions of thought are required: humanistic, environmental, anthropological, esthetical, philosophical, artistic, etc. (Colville-Andersen 2018). The desire for movement, when it is slow, draws from other geographies and other sets of values that planners must take charge of and public stakeholders encourage. Slowness is therefore a great opportunity for architectural and territorial projects. Besides, as Francesco Careri explained, the act of walking itself has been of crucial importance in giving mankind the perception both of linearity and territorial structures (Careri 2006), as for years we organized our living space instinctively following shapes and tactics derived from the use of slowness.