The Camino de Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and The Via Francigena (Italy): a comparison between two important historic pilgrimage routes in Europe

The Italian section of the Via Francigena, a Medieval pilgrimage route to Rome, has not yet been commercialised to its full potential when compared to the Camino de Santiago in Spain. There are many reasons for this under development. First, there is an absence of a specialised organisation focused on utilising the resources available; a difficulty that could be overcome by the forming a tourism body with the specific charter for developing these resources and attracting tourism. Second, the weight of the cultural heritage of Rome in the contest for religious tourism takes away from the valorisation of other pilgrimage routes of Italy. Nevertheless, since 2007 in the provinces of Parma, Massa Carrara, La Spezia and Lucca some effort, from both a religious and cultural perspective, has been made to advance tourism on the local leg of the route. By doing this, pilgrims and tourists have begun to walk along the ancient paths of faith towards Rome again. This paper examines reasons for the differences in success and development, but also in management, between two of the most traditional historic pilgrimage routes in Europe. It seeks to understand why the Italian case study continues to show a weaker trajectory of improvement when compared to other traditional tourist attractions in Ital