Tourism Policies in the Regional Operational Programmes in Calabria from 2000 to 2020

In the paper, an overall reading of the evolution of tourism policies in Calabria over the 20-year period 2000–2020 is proposed. The aim is to investigate the regional capacity to translate Community and national indications oriented towards overcoming a sectorial vision of tourism interventions and in favor of a territorially integrated strategy that also considers the new models of enjoyment of tourism resources. The text proposes a brief commentary centered on a critical comparison of the three programming cycles; the first, 2000–2006, which marked the transition from the conventional sectorial approach to tourism policies to integrated territorial planning; the second, 2007–2013, in which the quality of tourism is associated with the quality of life, the environment and the general principle of sustainability; the third, 2014–2020, centered on the stimulation of unprecedented forms of competitiveness and innovation in the tourism offer. In the final analysis, an attempt is made to understand whether in this twenty-year period the Region of Calabria has succeeded in synthesizing public intervention for tourism into a coherent strategy capable of concretely interpreting the principle of environmental, economic, and social sustainability shared by all today. Or whether, despite the maturation of a broader interpretation of tourism policy towards the identification of cultural, natural and landscape attractions and the acceptance of a declination as a resource spread and shared by communities, Calabria has limited itself to ‘chasing’ or legitimizing market trends, rather than orienting and governing them.