Silk Road Regionalism and Polycentric Tourism Development

Regionalism as a cognitive paradigm, explains the essence and principles of cooperation between the country (national) and global (supranational) levels of organization of world space. In tourism development the modern concept of regionalism processes of the formation of large multi-dimensional spaces and other territorial groupings (e.g. regional intra-state communities) that have a common cultural code, seeking the most effective use of internal and external factors of tourism development. This may be achieved by constructing a polycentric regional tourism architecture, reorganizing as well as boosting regional tourism and investment patterns being the vital challenge. In this paper analysis is focused on designing a polycentric network of regional tourism destinations related to Silk Road cultural heritage, where interregional tourism alliances will connect regions through entrepreneurial connectivity, based on the notion of polycentricity. Polycentricity indicates the connection of neighboring centres that have common characteristics, and their integration in wider spatial networks. Τhe interest is focused on cross-border linkages among polycentric regional networks of Silk Road cultural heritage destinations, creating tourism development entrepreneurial networks that could take advantage of historically cumulative relations. These polycentric tourism networks may emerge due to a number of factors falling under the rubric of Silk Road regionalisation and its attendant tourism dimensions. The potential for building an interregional Black Sea Silk Road tourism cooperation polycentric network focusing on active societies engaging in new types of cultural tourism experiences is being put in place.