Applicazioni GIS per gli itinerari e le aree turistiche del Molise

The analysis of tourist data from the past few years confirms the difficulties of the Molise region to be competitive compared to the other Italian regions because of the current lack of a tourism “made in Molise” and because of the weak promotion of local resources. After quantifying the entity of flows and the accommodation facilities of the Molise region, in order to identify the areas which need more specific intervention, we use Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to carry out two main objectives. Firstly, we analyse the land cover types in order to recognise the pre-eminent territorial features and the tourist vocational areas, with particular attention to agricultural, natural and semi-natural areas. Secondly, we propose criteria to evaluate the historical and cultural heritage of the different municipalities and we identify the main centres and those which can be considered destinations with interesting pull factors to be connected by different routes. In this process, aiming at the renewal of the Molisan tourist system, natural and rural landscapes together with the network of castles and the authentic nature of the components can act as the first factors in building the basis of a more solid tourist framework.