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Tourism can stimulate and favour the dialogue among different cultures. Tourism, as a socio-cultural phenomenon, is a powerful means for raising awareness about cultural diversity and cultural heritage (Wohlmuther & Wintersteiner, 2014). Moreover global institutions for tourism, as well as scholars and other professionals involved in tourism industry, are becoming increasingly interested in looking at tourism’s potential for peace making (Moufakkir & Kelly, 2010; Blanchard & Higgins-Desbiolles, 2013). The European Tourism Academy – in charge for proposing a European tourism strategy up to 2020 − has highlighted the role of tourism in building bridges and contributing to peace. In order to promote the use of tourism as an instrument for peace, UNWTO launched the project “Tourism and Peace” in collaboration with the Austrian Government and the University of Klagenfurt, Centre for Peace Research and Peace Education. The project was carried between 2012 and 2014. The existing literature (for example UNWTO 2007, 2011; Wohlmuther & Wintersteiner, 2014) has highlighted the need for: raising awareness and promoting the contribution of (religious) tourism to intercultural and interfaith dialogue and understanding, and socio-economic development; developing research to improve knowledge about the characteristics, motivations and trends of different forms of religious tourism, as well as its impact on hosting communities. Starting from these premises, the paper highlights the present and future contribution of tourism in promoting intercultural dialogue and peace education and encouraging cultural pluralism on all levels. In such a framework the paper will dwell upon some innovative practices of tourism and heritage enhancement based on socio-cultural awareness: the “Museo Atlantico”, a new underwater museum in Lanzarote, Canarias Islands (Spain), hosting underwater sculptures of the refugees and migrants arriving at Lampedusa; and the coming “Museo della Fiducia e del Dialogo Mediterraneo” (Museum of Trust and Mediterranean Dialogue) on the island of Lampedusa (Italy), with items from the Bardo Museum of Tunis (Tunisia), which was hit by terrorist attacks. These museums, which offer multi sensorial experiences, are expression of global trends in heritage and tourism (Marra, Ruspini, 2010; Melotti, 2014). Nevertheless, they invite visitors to reflect on the complex relationships between migration, peace and tourism as well as on the new migration processes and on the new fears, which are deeply transforming the Mediterranean area and its cultural heritage. The paper is part of an ongoing interdisciplinary research project carried out at LIST (Laboratorio Internazionale di Studi sul Turismo/International Atelier on Tourism Studies, University of Milano-Bicocca) by the three authors, which seeks to identify the role of tourism in promoting intercultural dialogue in Italy and in Europe.

The cultural heritage has always been an important tool in the political and identity formation of the nation-states. In the Western countries the gradual overcoming of nineteenth-century nationalism has paved the way for a post-modern use of their heritage, where tourism, market, culture, leisure and entertainment appear to be deeply interwoven. Museums, monuments and archaeological sites are important elements in the cultural and historical theming of consumption and in the promotion of the areas and requalification of their image. In the last decade the richest states in the Middle East, starting from the United Arab Emirates, have adopted both of these Western uses of heritage: local culture and monuments are used both as means of building or reinventing identity in a religious and national key and as instruments to promote the areas in recreational and tourist function. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are two significant cases. Their intangible heritage, which is enhanced and crystallized in a tourist way, concurs to construct a local historical identity. On the other hand, the major Western national museums, which in Europe have almost exhausted their political and identity function, are called to open branches there to attract international tourism, according to its post-modern model, and to assert the new metropolitan and international identity of these capitals. In such a context of renewed interest in the cultural heritage, we can recall the significant decision of Bahrain of hosting a centre devoted to Arab heritage under the auspices of UNESCO.

Máthesis, n. 16 (2007)