COMPETITIVITÀ E ATTRATTIVITÀ TURISTICA NEL MEZZOGIORNO ITALIANO, UNA PROSPETTIVA IN OTTICA DI MERCATO.

The world of tourism has experienced a radical change in paradigm. From a destination- based tourism model, the transition has been made to a model driven by motivation and the search of experience. The forces driving the change are: Internet, low cost tour operators, OTAs, and the new demand for experiences from tourists, which have changed the rules of the game and, most importantly, altered the balance between supply and demand. If the tourist structures and the tourist system as a whole in Southern Italy were already struggling, the current evolution leaves them unable to respond flexibly and effectively to change. Southern Italy's tourist system has hitherto rested on its laurels, and this has led to an endogenous approach, a very basic organisation of offer, with no added value and limited activity in terms of retail, marketing and innovation, and low levels of professional competence: Italy's offer in the tourist business is still too "solid", as opposed to an increasingly "fluid" market. The tourist system in Southern Italian regions is still organised according to an endogenous vision of the sector's development, and based on a model tuned to a production perspective, in which the offer is placed at the centre of the system. Other destinations in the Mediterranean, on the other hand, have progressed significantly, adopting models based on both the product and the client. Although everyone agrees that attracting tourist flows means creating value and economic growth in a territory, no specific and targeted measures are being put in place to achieve this result. As well as a reorganisation of offer in a more innovative and experience-based key, to be more competitive Southern Italy needs the role of local government to also be extensively reviewed: local administrations will have to take leadership of the destination, bringing a strategic vision to the territory, and becoming the main actor in conceiving and designing the offer of tourism and the related package of products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]