Cultural institutions and Digital Innovation: Is Cultural Tourism Becoming Obsolete?

This research investigates issues such as the preservation and valorization of cultural heritage, cultural and experiential tourism, cyber tourism and digital marketing. In this perspective, cultural tourism, being at the crossroads between the cultural and the economic system, may be thought as a primary activity in the effort of making economic development more culturally sustainable. However, the polarizing attractiveness of the Italian main cities of art results in a reduced capacity for spreading tourist flows throughout the national territory. Therefore, the aim of the research is to investigate how marketable and non-marketable cultural goods and services may be distributed to the wider public by means of digital technologies, either contributing to the human and social progress, either generating culturally sustainable economic value. Within this general framework, this research focuses on museums’ management and on the challenge of triggering a process of digital social innovation as a foundation for the online fruition of cultural goods and services. While waiting for a “new tourist normality†and given the renewed need for social distancing to limit the contagion, by exploiting technological and digital innovation, a new inclusive and attractive market for cultural tourism has been shaped. Therefore, the travel experience, as well as all the activities related to the preservation and valorization of cultural heritage, could evolve, because of the renewed needs of tourists inspired by the experiences and emotions lived on digital platforms.