The competitiveness of destinations can no longer be measured only by the number of tourists received. It increasingly depends on the ability to manage and balance development, identity and quality of life.
The concept of destination stewardship expresses this shift. It means moving from a purely promotional logic to a governance logic in which institutions, businesses and communities share responsibility for the care of the territory.
The best-performing Italian destinations are those that have adopted integrated and participatory forms of governance, where tourism flow management goes hand in hand with the enhancement of local production, environmental protection and the active involvement of local communities.
Stewardship is also a response to polarisation
Stewardship is one of the key tools for addressing the concentration of visitor flows. A limited number of places continue to attract the majority of tourists, while entire areas remain invisible because of a digital visibility gap and fragmented governance.
This is especially visible among foreign visitors: nearly half of international arrivals are concentrated in just six provinces, Venice, Rome, Bolzano, Milan, Florence and Verona. The percentage has fallen in recent years, but it remains high enough to show that territorial distribution is still highly uneven.
For this reason, destinations need to work on territorial theming, identity-led products, cultural and social carrying capacity, and visible forms of value return to local communities, for example through better use of the tourist tax. Governance needs to be professionalised, carrying capacity monitored and integrated into predictive systems, while visitor flows should be distributed more effectively across the year.
Destinations as ecosystems of knowledge and taste
Food and wine destinations increasingly need to think of themselves as integrated ecosystems rather than as isolated products or services. The added value is generated by the interconnection between producers, restaurants, hospitality operators and cultural actors.
In the new digital context, sustainability can no longer remain a declarative principle. It requires measurable indicators, from flow dispersion to residents’ perceptions and environmental impact per visit, integrated into data collection and analysis systems. Artificial intelligence may become a decisive tool in predicting and managing these impacts, but only if it is fed with reliable data produced by businesses and territories.
Measuring, today more than ever, also means ensuring fairness and awareness: understanding who benefits from tourism, where wealth concentrates and how the value created is distributed. Destination stewardship is therefore not just about control. It is about creating governance systems able to make tourism more balanced, more resilient and more useful to the communities that host it.
This article is adapted from the “2025 Italian Food & Wine Tourism Report”.
