We never come out the same from an entropic crisis. Along with the unprecedented health, social and economic emergency, the pandemic has relieved us from everything dispensable, bringing back society to all that is essential: human values, quality of life, food, a healthy environment. We have all reconsidered the meaning of time and space, new forms of tourism are able to regenerate the presence of humanity on Earth and instill once again a holistic sense of togetherness with the territory, culture, identity, and community. This dark period has revealed the need for a new mindset, one grounded in prosperity and exosystemic thinking.

From recent data, proximity tourism and under tourism are stable trends for 2020-2021. The tendency to privilege less frequented destinations has led to a +400% increase in interest towards small Italian villages, rediscovering local dormant resources and enogastronomic pride. A confirmation that also comes from a recent G20 meeting specifically focused on responsible and sustainable tourism: a crucial element for economic recovery but also the result of mutual collaboration and multi-sectoral partnerships and relationships.

As nature teaches us – and increasing studies on biophilia demonstrate – natural environments regenerate us physically, mentally, and socially. Slow tourism, is a tourism that respects – does not distorts, but listens to the perspectives of the host communities, that educates      and makes artistic and artisan heritage accessible, can replicate the same natural result: linking complexities for a concrete paradigm of restorativeness.

Considering that half of the 55 Italian UNESCO heritage sites are in municipalities with a population of less than 5,000, the increasing number of “Ghost Towns,” and the unprecedented time of individual isolation, loneliness, and mental hardship, tourism can become one of the tangibles of a caring economy, acknowledging that GDP alone cannot measure the prosperity of a country.

Tourism has this crucial potential: embracing a systemic view of the territory, combining(micro)-landscapes and their people, social and environmental needs, but also ensuring the actor engagement theory by functioning as a network and living hub of innovation and regeneration, where local actors are involved in decision making and generating idea processes.

Several Italian Mayors, representatives of the interests of their inhabitants and territories, have started from slow tourism as a potential flywheel to fill current weaknesses that are effecting small villages, such as depopulation, abandonment, bureaucracy, large distances, and inadequate infrastructures.

The recent Urban Regeneration Plan, developed by the current administration of Pollica (Italy), a small rural village in the middle of the Mediterranean, known for being the UNESCO Emblematic Community for the Mediterranean Diet, embodies perfectly the potential of slow tourism as a means to rethink and repurpose existing realities.

On one hand, it aims to recover old buildings in former agricultural areas and develop historical centers into tourist facilities, on the other revitalizing the coastal flora while limiting the aggressiveness of temporary beach resorts.

It is precisely for its unique natural, historical, archeological, cultural and eno-gastronomic heritage that the Pollica, in Cilento, known for being Slow City was chosen to implement the Paideia Campus. Paideia, the pedagogical development in force in ancient Greece representing the path of integral education, cannot be reached without merging three crucial dimensions of life (education, innovation, and community) with responsible tourism.

Education shall originate from value-based learning. For this reason and in the aim of training “Climate Shapers,” educational trips, teacher training, and Boot Camps, are all shaped to lead locals and foreigners, businesses and policymakers in a continuous process of learning co-creation, originating from the ancient wisdom of nature.

Also in terms of innovation, it is important to prototype models and services to ensure sustainable agriculture, fishing, blue economy, and sustainable tourism to counteract the current issue of depopulation affecting the area. As for the case of the Mediterranean Food Coalition, innovation comes in support of traditional knowledge and practice to better protect biodiversity and natural resources.

Finally, merging community and biodiversity in the long term requires us to embrace the richness of the landscape, agricultural, crops, and human diversity. Promoting territorial regeneration and battling deseasonalization of tourism are at the core of the initiative “Agri-Culture/Benessere Giovani,” supporting youths from Pollica in realizing their dreams into business ideas, starting from a sustainable promotion of         their territories. Similarly, “Trame Mediterranee: From Earth to Convivio,” a cycle of dinners, in which iconic products at the basis of the Mediterranean Diet are discovered through the narrations of their local producers, farmers, and food makers.

Tourism is based on experiences and memories. To avoid being forgotten, places urge to experience through their products, tastes, and smells, but also through the stories of their people. To embrace integral ecology, we need to restore beauty and collective well-being. This inevitably passes through responsible tourism.