Geographic Marginality, Transport Accessibility and Tourism Development

The purpose of the study is to test empirically some hypothesis about the relation between transport accessibility, geographic marginality and tourism development. To what extent and how accessibility can represent a limit to tourism development in peripheral areas? Tourism is historically connected to the development of the transport system and the reduction of economic distances. Regions like the South of Italy (Mezzogiorno) may have as well suffered for their geographic marginality. Tourism development in many peripheral areas however, demonstrates how marginality can even represent an attraction. The uneven development of Italian tourism is not only influenced by physical accessibility, but rather by more complex problems of economic marginality. Accessibility, marginality and development are complex issues and – especially in the case of tourism – it is not possible to draw deterministic relationships. Mezzogiorno is the ideal context for the analysis of the effective weight of distance in travel choices and tourism competitiveness.