Pubblicazioni

Athens Journal of Tourism - Volume 10, Issue 3, September 2023 – Pages 221-242
Maria Paola Pasini

There are destinations that have a long tourism history marked by different transformations and phases and generally with a continuous growth of the tourism phenomenon. In recent years, some of these locations are overwhelmed by overtourism, which focuses on specific places because of their beauty, notoriety, history and reputation. Recently local governances are beginning to implement sustainable strategies to curb flows and mitigate the impacts on the territory of tourism excesses. This is the only opportunity for the destination to continue its life and avoid decline: a new model of sustainable rejuvenation. The paper sets out to analyze some aspects of the long-term history of Lake Garda, one of the most popular destinations in Italy. Starting from a tourism history that has been mainly established since the 19th century with a very "exclusive" form, this contribution aims to focus on the main trends that have seen Garda's attractiveness grow over the decades. It also analyzes the problem of "overtourism" that has affected some lake locations in recent years and the strategies implemented at the local level to contain this phenomenon.

Modern Italy (2023), 28, 51–65
Maria Paola Pasini

This article reconstructs the heated - local and national - debate around the consistent and pervasive foreign presence in the border territory of Lake Garda on the eve of the Great War. Here, the growing nationalistic tensions that preceded the conflict intertwined with the emerging hospitality industry. Tourism, seen as a social phenomenon, can thus offer a privileged perspective on the transformations of the general context of the time. Introduced by Austro-Germanic inhabitants of the lake at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the hospitality industry on Lake Garda flourished up to the eve of the Great War. There were, however, also opponents to this model of development. The dispute escalated to the point that, in the perception of the locals, the ‘outsiders’ turned into ‘enemies’ and Lake Garda increasingly became a disputed area: a symbol of the tensions of the time.