Mitigating Overtourism with New Forms of Cultural Tourism in Adriatic: The Potential Role of Ancient Maritime Wine Routes

Dubrovnik and Venice are probably the most touristically overloaded cities in Europe: their rate of tourists per inhabitant, according to an analysis carried out by the booking portal for holiday rentals Holidu, makes them the most afflicted towns by overtourism, especially during summertime. This awareness should lead us to rethink the tourism industry in the Adriatic Region, to decompress overbooked places and promote social and economic growth in (still) undeveloped tourist destinations. Wine is one of the motivations that leads tourists to choose a destination over others, both because wine regions are usually pleasant places, also due to the landscape that vineyards help shape, and both because food and wine tourism can connect visitors with local producers, thus local population, history, culture and identity. This kind of experience can push towards new routes of cultural tourism, able to bring visitors to minor destinations of the Region, ideally reducing their stay in the main, crowded towns, to discover unknown but attractive territories and their culture. Building on the legacy built by Interreg Adrion projects such as Approdi and Approdi Plus, we have focused on the Adriatic Region as a maritime and cultural region, a liquid territory and individual entity of the Mediterranean Sea and Europe. By investigating two archive collections, i.e. the Provveditori Generali in Dalmazia e Albania from the State Archives in Zadar and the Cinque Savi alla Mercanzia in Venice State Archive, we are tracing wine trades between the two sides of the Adriatic in the centuries XVII and XVIII. Combined with a critical analysis of previous attempts to promote cultural heritage of the Adriatic space, the ultimate goal of the research is to draw up an analytical proposal for new cultural tourism itineraries focused on wine aimed at Millennials, in the walk of these ancient commercial routes. The anchorage to the historical dimension could be a win-win strategy: on the one hand, it would help decompress overloaded cities thus promoting social and economic growth in new areas and on the other hand, it would contribute to partly de-seasonalize tourism flows. The latter is an aspect that should not be underestimated precisely because it is closely related to (food and) wine tourism.