Internal Areas and Smart Tourism. Promoting Territories in Sardinia Island

The paper tackle the issue related to the promotion of internal areas of Sardinia, considered the contrast existing between a strong, peak coastal tourism and a lower development in the internal areas. Considered the vast amount of cultural and environmental goods present in the territory, particularly in internal areas, in this paper we promote a mixed qualitative – quantitative method for highlighting more promising areas for targeting ad hoc policies of development. We start with a hot spot analysis of cultural and environmental goods in Sardinia Region, with particular reference to the internal areas. We then proceed with highlighting the municipalities or aggregation of municipalities presenting the highest concentrations of such goods. Then we qualitatively evaluate those events or sites generally more renown and appreciated, observing if local – municipal or regional – policies have been activated for their promotion. Observed that, we suggest possible interventions to enhance the touristic offer of such part of the Sardinia island. © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018