The Experience-Oriented Tourism in Tuscan Rural Areas

Despite the present scenario of general economic uncertainty, Tuscan rural spaces are still appealing to tourists from Italy and abroad. The changes which took place in the early 1990’s are still evolving in these rural places, where farmers are adapting their supply to the demand of this changing market. In fact, nowadays, there still is a tourist demand for an old-style holiday in rural spaces which is based on the attraction towards natural places and genuine food, while a demand for a more stunning lamorous-style holiday is increasing. The widespread presence of farms involved in tourism is sizable, with more than 4,000 farms (and about 52,000 beds) recorded in 2011, which were dispersed around places with valued cultural landscape and places with valued cultural landscape and linked to apreciated and certified products which in some areas are the pivotal resources. Rethinking rural tourism and agritourism through a wider range of integrated and customized services and looking at rural areas from a different perspective represent two important strategies in order to implement the experience-oriented tourism in the countryside too.