RUTAS CULTURALES EN TRANSICIÓN. REDES DE ECOTURISMO PARA COMUNIDADES PATRIMONIALES EN SICILIA Y ANDALUCÍA

Nowadays, the ecological transition is aimed at defining new cultural services that improve the attractiveness and accessibility of places for the communities that inhabit them. The main objective of this contribution is to investigate the relationship between territory and cultural heritage in order to respond to the phenomenon of depopulation of inland areas, to contribute to the development of activities linked to the phenomenon of tourism. This approach introduces the unprecedented concept of the heritage community, identified ‘by people who value specific aspects of a cultural heritage that they wish to preserve and pass on to future generations, within the framework of action by the public authorities’. The new forms and networks of ecotourism identify the experiential practice of travel as the central figure of this experience. In this framework, the definition of new tourist itineraries contributes to the awareness of the territory for its valorisation and enjoyment through the knowledge, monitoring and active participation of the communities that insist on these places. In Sicily and Andalusia, the landscape is intertwined with ancient and recent history, feeding the hypothesis of transforming places with minimal projects through declinations and interpretations of the existing.