A sustainable strategy of redistribution of the tourist flows in Basilicata region, in south Italy. Coastal tourism as a development factor for the natural parks.

Basilicata region, in south Italy, is delimited by the Ionian and the Tyrrhenian seas and includes territories morphologically different with four protected areas, two regional and two national. This lack of homogeneity of the territory reflects on the tourism dynamics of the region. Coastal territories are more profitable in terms of flows, while in the inland territories, except Matera, the weight of tourism is still too low. In the protected areas, except the Regional Park of Murgia Materana, flows are marginal and tourism cannot activate a significant local development process. Given this framework, the Fondazione Mattei conducted a study aiming at the determination of strategic guidelines for the planning of a local development based on the integration between market forces and forms of social control. This planning aims at the redistribution and deseasonalization of coastal flows through the integration between coastal and rural tourism in the inland. To evaluate the integrated tourism product potentiality, Eni Enrico Mattei foundation analyzed some national case studies and conducted a survey on the consumer of the Ionian Coast. Analysis measured the tourism competitiveness of the protected areas in Basilicata by the use of Dwyer and Kim’s model combined with Balanced Scorecard method. The more appealing products for the coastal demand and more competitive products in the market of green destinations have been identified by BCG matrix.The analysis outlined the necessity of a strategy of integration of the four protected areas in order to increase their market share and several tourism segments should be enhanced to increase the potential of the nature-based tourism product of Basilicata