Social “Smartourism”: A Sustainable Development Methodology for Smart Urban Lands

This paper presents a plan for a project called “Social Smart Tourism,” which follows models of organizational development typical of Smart City, to plan strategies that, with the help of ICT technologies, will develop and optimize services related to human, intellectual, and social capital, involving information, communication, mobility and environment, in order to improve the quality of life. In particular, this paper engages with the methodology of “Smart Tourism,” a much-promoted field oriented towards sustainable and environmentally friendly tourism, by underlining places and resources that are not well known. Then, the smart method is applied to the Social Tourism, leading to an innovative model of territory development, especially for more disadvantaged demographics such as the old, disabled, and poor. Social Smart Tourism arises from the need to accept the requests of territories regarding their requalification and from the necessity to fill the gaps of social aggregation. The suburbs of Rome, rich in hidden touristic resources of remarkable importance, distinguished itself among the territories analyzed by its demand of requalification. The stakeholders making the request are represented by the Ecomuseo Casilino Association and V Municipio holding the territory of interest. The aim is to reintroduce a tourist-wise public park placed in the Comprensorio CasilinoPrenestino, which includes Villa De Sanctis and Casa della Cultura, promoting ancient discoveries that are in the park like the Mausoleo of S. Elena and the Catacombe dei Santi Pietro e Marcellino. In this work, we present this example of request and planning through a model of a smart village, defined in cooperation with the Smartourism Laboratory and based on concepts and methods for the realization of new ICT infrastructures and sustainable socio-economic models. This coincides with the introduction of an example of cultural parameters oriented to resolve the difficulties of connection and participation inside the territory.