Rediscovering the “Urban” in Two Italian Tourist Coastal Cities

Abstract

This chapter appreciates the role of tourism within the more holistic framework of urban policy in the context of coastal cities. Through an investigation of two medium-sized Italian cities (Rimini and Pesaro), the study addresses the paucity of literature on regeneration strategies conducted in coastal areas where tourism has already reached a mature stage of development. The idea of a “culture city” emerges as the most appropriate pathway to innovation, change and progress in line with the several, albeit often criticised, examples of culture-led regeneration in urban studies. The discourse analysis of the strategic plans of each city emphasises the different role that the sea and the seaside play in each location. Rimini explicitly includes these factors as pivotal cultural resources, which is evident in the innovative concept of “sea wellness”. Pesaro, on the other hand, does not attribute a specific role to the sea and the seaside; they are instead simply juxtaposed with a vibrant city centre that appeals to business and cultural tourists.

Full text

Rediscovering the “urban” in two Italian tourist coastal cities
Chiara Rabbiosi (University of Bologna) and Massimo Giovanardi (University of Leicester)
This paper has been published as a book chapter in the following book:
“Tourism in the City: Towards an Integrative Agenda on Urban Tourism”
Rabbiosi, Chiara; Giovanardi, Massimo, Rediscovering the “Urban” in Two Italian Tourist
Coastal Cities, in: Bellini, N & Pasquinelli, C. (eds.) Tourism in the City. Towards an
Integrative Agenda on Urban Tourism, Switzerland, Springer International Publishing, 2016,
pp. 247 - 258- ISBN 978-3-319-26876-7
Abstract This paper appreciates the role of tourism within the more holistic framework of urban
policy in the context of coastal cities. Through an investigation of two medium-sized Italian cities
(Rimini and Pesaro), the study addresses the paucity of literature on regeneration strategies conducted
in coastal areas where tourism has already reached a mature stage of development. The idea of a
“culture city” emerges as the most appropriate pathway to innovation, change and progress in line
with the several, albeit often criticized, examples of culture-led regeneration in urban studies. The
discourse analysis of the strategic plans of each city emphasizes the different role that the sea and the
seaside play in each location. Rimini explicitly includes these factors as pivotal cultural resources,
which is evident in the innovative concept of “sea wellness”. Pesaro, on the other hand, does not
attribute a specific role to the sea and the seaside; they are instead simply juxtaposed with a vibrant
city centre that appeals to business and cultural tourists.
Keywords: urban tourism, culture, heritage, seaside, strategic planning

Per quest’anno non cambiare: stessa spiaggia stesso mare
[For this year please don’t change: beach and sea will be the same]
(E. Vianello, 1962)
1. The complexity of tourism and “the urban”1
The question of how to pursue alternative paths of development that transcend the problems linked to
tourism is certainly not new for destination and city managers. The broad concept of “alternative”
approaches to hyper-touristification gained remarkable coverage in the literature on tourism studies
between the 1980s and 1990s (see Weaver 1991), and a similar effort is still animating the work of
contemporary tourism scholars examining other paradigm shifts, such as the one towards
sustainability (e.g. Jamrozy 2007; Buckley 2012). In addition, tourism has begun to assume
unprecedented significance as a means for resolving political as well as socio-economic problems of
cities and regions affected by the processes of deindustrialization. As such, it has become a pivotal
item on the urban policy agenda (Hoffman et al. 2003).
Cities can be considered as complex and dynamic entities (see for example Comunian 2011). This
might be not only due to their rich array of “soft” assets (skills and knowledge, symbols and images,
rituals and traditions), but also due to the presence of multiple agents – human and non-human –
contributing to the constant redefinition of built environment and infrastructure (ibidem). Tourism
takes on a particular role in contributing to the complexity of this urban scenario since it is able to
influence not only the pace of change but also its trajectory and implementation (Spirou 2011). Of
course, as Pearce (2001, p. 928) contends, “the complexity of urban tourism has no doubt helped
delay research in this field, because the need to disentangle it from other urban functions makes it
more difficult to study than in many other settings”. However, this complexity can also be emphasised
as a source of richness, especially with respect to the contribution that physical and symbolic urban
1Chiara Rabbiosi, Department for Life Quality Studies (QuVi) - Center for Advanced Studies in Tourism (CAST)
University of Bologna, Italy
Email: chiara.rabbiosi@gmail.com
Massimo Giovanardi
School of Management – University of Leicester
Email: m.giovanardi@le.ac.uk
Massimo Giovanardi is author of the sections 1 and 5, and Chiara Rabbiosi of sections 2, 3, and 4. Conclusions have been
drawn by the authors together.

assets have on “spatial strategy-making” (Albrechts 2004, 2006). In line with Healey (2007, p. 3), the
urban complexity and its manifestations can be appreciated by endorsing a relational approach to
spatial planning, which encourages place managers to “grasp the dynamic diversity of the complex
co-location of multiple webs of relations that transect and intersect across an urban area”.
With this in mind, we focus on two medium-sized Italian neighbouring cities, Rimini and Pesaro.
The two cases have been sampled because of their similarity in terms of size, geographical location
and socio-economic development. Hence, different visions and paths for future development are
likely to stand out more clearly in the analysis. In both cities, the local economy has mainly developed
within Fordist-like scenarios of, respectively, mass tourism at the seaside and industrial production of
goods and commodities. In these two cities’ recent strategic plans, traditional and novel development
paradigms are combined and re-interpreted according to themes that are generally acknowledged as
successful formulas for urban and tourism planning, with the issue of cultural tourism acquiring
particular prominence in the future envisioned by policy makers.
2. The Post-Fordist shift in coastal cities
Both Rimini and Pesaro are located along the Adriatic coast and have a main source of revenues and
jobs provision in seaside tourism, especially during summer seasons. This includes not only tourism at
beach areas and facilities; Roman and Medieval heritage assets also characterise the two cities,
although these have played an ancillary role in tourist product development and promotion. Both
cities are now struggling to find “their own place” in a scenario of increased regional competition, and
they are attempting to attract and maintain human and physical capital. In doing so, the cities are also
considerably questioning their identity by evaluating what can be saved from their past in order to
make them more economically appealing.
By the end of the 20th century, attracting a range of exogenous resources – people, businesses, and
investments – had become the most urgent means to revitalize urban local economy (Cochrane 2007;
Gordon and Buck 2005; Harvey 1989). Indeed, cities cannot stand as economic actors on their own,
but they can stimulate the agglomeration of demand, that is to say consumption immersed in a
continuous circular flow of economic relations on the global scale (Amin and Thrift 2002). In this
context, “culture” started becoming a major component of urban entrepreneurialism (Zukin 1995,
Evans 2003), and social and demographic changes were increasing the demand for cultural facilities
(Uriely 2005). In this scenario, the regeneration policies of cities have taken a variety of paths,
ranging from rehabilitating historic neighbourhoods, branding space with cultural amenities, stressing
the role of creative clusters, promoting cultural infrastructure (museums, thematic and heritage parks,
etc.) and cultural events and festivals (Miles and Paddison 2005; Patel 2012). The rehabilitation of
cultural heritage as expressed both in its tangible and intangible counterparts has also become an
essential element of this framework (Zukin 2012). So-called cultural tourism (Robinson and Smith

2006) has become an essential corollary of culture-led urban regeneration. Cultural tourism has also
been presented as an alternative to mass tourism and established as the “good tourism” that is
respectful of sites and populations (Cousin 2008). The specific policies encouraging the development
of cultural tourism projects can be understood as a way to generate economic resources by exploiting
urban heritage sites and by inviting visitors to engage in practices of cultural consumption.
In this shift, coastal cities have been generally redeveloped through the regeneration of their
waterfronts. Urban waterfronts are highly exploitable spaces because they are interfaces between the
built environment and water. At the same time, they provide empty space to be re-filled with various
amenities, especially in those cases where access to water coincide with hubs for transportation and
industry, such as in port cities such as New York, Barcelona or Genova. Much has been written about
the regeneration of industrial waterfronts (for a summary, see Brownill 2013). However, little
research has focussed either on those coastal cities where tourism had already developed in the
framework of a Fordist economy during the 20th century or on coastal cities which were neither major
ports nor major beach resorts. The former applies to the case of Rimini, once known as one of the
most famous European destinations for mass tourism at the seaside, and the latter refers to the case of
Pesaro, a nearby coastal city whose economy was based on a combination of manufacturing industries
(e.g. furniture) and its service sector (e.g. tourism). To fill this gap, the question of how to design
innovative tourism policies by keeping the seaside as a valuable resource is addressed in this present
article through a critical investigation of the discourses mobilised by these two cities during the
elaboration of their vision in the 2000s through strategic planning. The study is performed by
analysing the two strategic plans, which put into discourses the paths for future development of the
two cities.
3. A critical discourse approach to strategic planning
Both Rimini and Pesaro started practising a collaborative approach to planning in the 2000s that
culminated in two strategic plans containing the visions for the two cities’ future urban regeneration.
Gaining a renewed international interest, strategic planning should be located in the wider stream of
relational spatial planning (Healey 2007; Davoudi et al. 2009). In this view, policy makers are
supposed to address the theme of urban regeneration by fostering the integration and coordination of
different sectors and by encouraging the participation of a variety of public and private stakeholders.
Participation of individual citizens is also explicitly encouraged.
Strategic planning is not universally defined, but it instead generally focuses on a limited number
of key issue areas. Strategic planning takes a critical and strategic view of the environment in terms of
strengths and weaknesses evaluated against a background of opportunities and threats. Strategic
planning maximizes public engagement and develops a long-term vision for the place, together with a
set of strategies and tactics within different policy areas. In short, strategic spatial planning designs

plan-making structures and develops new ideas and frameworks for managing spatial change. As an
ultimate element informing all the resolutions, strategic planning usually identifies a vision, consisting
in a set of images that project a desirable future for the city. In addition, “[t]his ‘created future’ has to
be placed within a specific context (economic, social, political, and power), place, time, and scale
with regard to specific issues and a particular combination of actors. It provides the setting from the
process but also takes form, undergoes changes in the process. All this must be rooted in an
understanding of the past” (Albrechts 2004, p. 750).
This present paper aims to analyse the two cities’ strategic plans, and it seeks to identify how
tourism is framed in the creation of new urban development policies that intend to reach the desirable
future outlined by the plans. This study is exploratory in nature and relies on an interpretivist
paradigm in which researchers are engaged with an “empathic understanding of human action rather
than with the forces that are deemed to act on it” (Bryman 2008: 15). Accordingly, cities are
considered mainly as sets of narratives (see Lichrou et al. 2008) and discourses. In this view, language
is considered to be the medium to construct the social world; thus, discourse analysis is adopted as a
significant analytical approach of this article (see Lucarelli and Giovanardi 2014). Discourse analysis
is increasingly seen as a useful approach to understanding a range of issues in planning, including
power, knowledge, ideology, persuasion, social difference and institutional framing (Lees 2004).
Planning texts can be seen as concrete realizations of discourses and discursive strategies (MacCallum
and Hopkins 2011) between language use, the ways in which planning problems are framed and how
potential solutions are justified.
4. Setting the stage: Rimini and Pesaro in brief
The city of Rimini (about 145,000 inhabitants at the end of 2013) stands at the core of the so-called
Romagna Riviera, a conurbation that includes European coastal beach resorts that were among some
of the most profitable during the second half of the 20th century. The development of mass tourism
after World War II rapidly contributed to triggering industrial development (Battilani and Fauri 2009),
and it created a remarkable divide between the coast and Rimini’s inner region. After many decades
of reliance on a model based on mass tourism at the seaside, nightlife services, and the provision of
facilities, policymakers have looked into alternative sources of local development since the 1990s.
These include business tourism-oriented services and cultural heritage. The construction of new
exhibition and congress centres in the first decade of the 2000s has coupled with pioneering efforts in
the conservation and management of heritage sites.
Pesaro (about 94,000 inhabitants at the end of 2013) is located along the same coast as Rimini, but
it is about thirty kilometres away. Pesaro’s economic development has unfolded as less dependent on

tourism than Rimini, although seaside tourism is undoubtedly well developed in the area, with well-
infrastructured beaches and a wider array of hospitality services. If Rimini is generally considered a
tourist city, Pesaro is more generally considered an industrial city, hosting one of the most important
furniture districts in Italy. In addition, Pesaro is the birthplace of the composer Gioachino Rossini and
hosts an international opera festival.
5. Future visions of tourism in Pesaro and Rimini
5.1. Introducing strategic planning
Rimini introduced its strategic plan in the mid-2000s. Officially launched in July 2007 with horizon
2027, Rimini’s Strategic Plan2 was promoted by the Municipality of Rimini, the Province, the
Chamber of Commerce, and the Rimini Bank Foundation, a charity organisation linked to the leading
Rimini bank. In 2008/2009, eight working groups were created to discuss the future of Rimini. The
groups were composed of a variety of public and private stakeholders, such as public administrations,
unions, trade associations, and a variety of third-sector representatives. The spirit of this strategic plan
was expressed in the slogan Il Piano strategico, cambia la tua città (“The strategic plan changes your
city”), stressing the role of local actors as active participants in the planning process. In 2011, the
vision emerging from the participatory phase was established and ready to be implemented.
Simultaneously, the Piano Stretegico Valmarecchia3 was launched, focussing on the Rimini
hinterland Marecchia River Valley. This second strategic plan is generally acknowledged as aiming to
extend the “catchment” area of Rimini’s Strategic Plan, although it is formally independent from it.
Pesaro, the other city of this study, released its own Strategic Plan at the beginning of the 2000s,
under the framework of horizon 2015. The title of the plan’s main document is “Pesaro future with a
view. Strategic plan of a city of quality” (emphasis in original).4 The process was commenced by the
local municipality in 2001, while the analysis and definition of its aims were developed between
October 2001 and June 2002. Six working groups were organised in order to elaborate a shared vision
for the future of the city, an effort that was guided by the slogan “Pesaro, city of quality”. Both public
and private actors officially took place in the planning process, including the Province government,
professional organisations, banks, foundations and third-sector organisations (Martufi 2012). The
participatory character of strategic planning in Pesaro during the mid-2000s has been highlighted in
scholarly work (Albrecht 2006), and the focus on strategic planning in the area was progressively
extended through a provincial strategic plan released in 2011, which goes beyond the administrative
2 http://www.riminiventure.it; the final document of Rimini’s Strategic Plan can be downloaded form the website. Accessed
28 Dec 2015.
3 http://www.fiumemarecchia.it. Accessed 28 Dec 2015.
4 http://www.pianostrategico.comune.pesaro.pu.it; the final document of Pesaro’s Strategic Plan can be downloaded from the
website. Accessed 28 Dec 2015.

boundaries of the municipality. The table below illustrates the policy areas identified by each of the
strategic plans (see Table 1).
RIMINI PESARO
Main policy areas as
illustrated in each plan
1. A new relationship with the
sea
2. Mobility as a major
challenge
3. A business system made of
people and innovation
4. The quality of a
reassembled and cohesive
region (territorio
ricomposto e coeso) a
5. Culture that shapes and
informs people and creates
a new image
1. Attracting enterprises
2. City of culture
3. City promotion and
internationalisation
4. Information and new
technology
5. Local welfare
6. Local environment
(territorio)
Common policy areas
(compared)
-Culture that shapes and
informs people and creates
a new image
-A business system made of
people and innovation
-The quality of a
reassembled and cohesive
region
-City of culture
-Attracting enterprises
(includes mobility
infrastructure)
-Local welfare
and
Local environment
Specific policy areas -A new relationship with the
sea
-Mobility as a major
challenge
-City promotion and
internationalisation
-Information and new
technology
Table 1 The main policy areas of the two strategic plans.
a The original term territorio has in Italian, as in French, a different meaning than the English term of territory. Territorio
corresponds to a wider conception of space as theorized among cultural geographers. We have translated territorio with the
most appropriate English words according to the different nuances that the term takes in the strategic plans.

5.2. Tourism in an idyllic scenario of culture-led development
The two strategic plans feature several elements in common. As illustrated in Table 1’s second row,
many of the policy areas identified by planners are very similar, such as the foundational role of
knowledge, innovation, business attraction and internationalisation. In particular, both Rimini and
Pesaro project a desirable future for themselves, by articulating a main overarching discourse that
underscores the redeeming role of culture. Thus, Pesaro’s Strategic Plan identifies culture as the
“point of departure” for appreciating a renovated interest in “a new humanism” as a key theme, as
illustrated by the following excerpt:
The theme of culture is a point of departure in so far as it represents the shared
acknowledgement of the existence of a Pesaro model. The identity of this model is already
recognised and can further become a multiplier of local resources, not only from the economic
point of view. The idea is to propose Pesaro as a “new humanism” (nuovo umanesimo), the
physical and spiritual place of the resolution between economic development and
environmental defence, technological progress and arts promotion, mass civilisation and the
centrality of human beings. To consolidate this model, the creation of a cultural heritage
network has been created. This network will be able to connect and capitalize also on heritage
that is not within the city but that can be considered part of this system because of proximity.
The relationship between the industrial district and planning, applied arts, and the relationship
between tourism and culture have been identified as important actions for the reinforcement of
a Pesaro model that has also to keep alive the theme of formation and creation of spillover
effects in terms of quality of culture (programme document of Pesaro’s Strategic Plan p. 9).
Two elements emerge as particularly connected with “culture” here, and they can be intended as the
two specific embodiments of a re-envisioned idea of what tourism should be in this specific context:
the ability of culture-led development to foster territorial cohesion, and the ability of culture to be
crystallized in cultural heritage.
From one perspective, tourism is contextualised within a scenario where the redeeming role of
culture works as an enabling factor for an augmented territorial cohesion in a transition from
fragmentation (e.g. “resolution”) to connectedness (“network”, “connect”, “relationship”; “system”).
This supporting discourse on “networked cities” is featured within the areas of business attraction
(“infrastructure”; encouraging migrants integration”) and culture (“take advantage of a system of
culture”) in Pesaro’s Strategic Plan. A similar role of culture as a “glue” also stems from Rimini’s
Strategic Plan which identifies culture as an engine that “gives shape and informs people and creates a
new image” (Rimini’s Strategic Plan, pp. 106-114), thus avoiding a homologation of culture. This

hints at a kind of interconnectedness that puts particular emphasis on the role of social capital
(“people”), a major element of territorial cohesion. This expression of culture also sketches an
envisioned cultural milieu that would soften the contrasts between residents and tourists without
rejecting the centenary tradition of Rimini as a tourist city. Indeed “Rimini [is], a cultured and kind
land of history, traditions and hospitality” (Rimini’s Strategic Plan, p. 108).
From a second perspective, cultural heritage emerges as another key thematisation of culture-led
development. This perspective on tourism as embedded in a hopeful celebration of “culture” and
“heritage” renders an urban setting that recalls a fashionable “renewed optimism about cities […]” as
“exciting and creative places in which to live and work” (Gordon and Buck 2005: 6). This indeed
results in an ideal host city matching new trends in tourism (Richards 2014). Cultural heritage is
identified with giving a new meaning to the historic city centre in Pesaro’s Strategic Plan, while it
takes a more nuanced acceptation in Rimini’s Strategic Plan. Besides hospitality (see previous
paragraph), cultural heritage includes the regeneration of Rimini’s inner city neighbourhoods, the
city’s Roman remains (as part of the project of events to celebrate 2000 years of the Tiberius bridge
“Rimini Fluxus”) and the changing role of the seaside (see next section).
The desirable form of tourism, then, is seen as an inherently cultural one, namely as something
that goes beyond the traditional dominant model of mass tourism that prevailed during the previous
decades. This targeted understanding of tourism is evident in the following quotes from Pesaro’s
Strategic Plan: “Pesaro aims to promote cultural, urban tourism and not only seaside tourism.
[Cultural and urban tourism is] a quality tourism that is already an important part of tourism turnover
in Italy today. This kind of tourism will increase on the basis of the growth of a more demanding and
sophisticated tourist demand.” (Pesaro’s Strategic Plan, p. 23). Cultural tourism is thus seen as a
leverage for shaping a networked society that is free of conflict in which movements of flows, objects,
ideas and people can lead the way towards change and progress.
By linking it to territorial cohesion and cultural heritage, tourism is seen through a more holistic
perspective that transcends a view that confines it within the realm of mass tourism at the seaside.
This shared attitude in the two strategic plans intends to incorporate “forgotten” aspects of each city
into a more varied provision of tourism supply. However, the two plans articulate this view in two
different ways, as illustrated by the following section.
5.3 The relationship with the seaside: connectivity or complementarity?
Both Rimini and Pesaro stress the role of culture as the main engine for future developments and
cultural tourism as key driver of this, but the cities do so in different ways. Rimini explicitly includes
the seaside as a crucial ingredient of its envisioned future by shedding new light on it. Indeed, the first
policy area identified by its plan is termed “A new relationship with the sea” (Rimini’s Strategic Plan ,
see pp. 81-85). In contrast, in Pesaro’s Strategic Plan , the sea or the seaside are never stand-alone

elements, not even in specific regard to tourism, which is simply a sub-theme under the “culture city”
policy area or the “internationalisation” policy area (in this case, tourism is entirely “business
tourism”). Rimini, on the other hand, recognises itself a seaside city by re-elaborating the role and the
meaning that the sea and seaside may possess for the city’s future, a process commonly started after
the “eutrophication crises” of the 1990s (Becheri 1991).
The difference between Pesaro and Rimini in their relation to the sea and seaside is articulated
along three dimensions that appreciate (i) the built environment; (ii) land use and (iii) urban space as
practised by social actors. Regarding the first, it is possible to argue that Pesaro’s Strategic Plan
conceives the historical centre and the waterfront area by simply juxtaposing them, while Rimini’s
Strategic Plan identifies the fracture between them and suggests a way to recompose it. This fracture
is physical since the Marina section and the city centre appear to be heavily disjointed due to the
intrusive presence of the railway, splitting the urban fabric into two parts. This fracture is also
symbolic since Rimini’s tourist resort evokes noisy, over-crowded, leisure-based seaside tourism.
According to the vision emerging in Rimini’s Strategic Plan, instead, the beach will no longer be just
a site “for fun”, but it will assume the new identity of an active agent. This vision is developed
through the idea of “sea wellness” in Rimini’s Strategic Plan (p.81; pp. 131-132). Seaside tourism is
therefore upgraded, and it becomes part of the same ideology of the “culture city”.
Transforming the seaside area is thus changing how the beach can be used and the alternative
types of tourism that the beach itself will enable. In this appreciation, Rimini identifies the sea and the
seaside as “the grounding element of a new concept of well-being” (p. 81), and it stresses the “value”
that this new awareness for seaside tourism has “on the other types of tourism […], bringing benefit
also to the city and its residents” (p. 132). In fact, while Pesaro addresses primarily business and
cultural tourists and scarcely mentions the sea, the Rimini plan assigns the sea as one of the relational
hubs of the city’s life including residents, tourists and city-users alike. To sum up, Rimini does not
reject its “mass tourism identity” but strongly stresses the fact that there is also (and has always been)
another city rooted in an ancient civilisation and hospitality culture, and that these two “souls” can be
genuinely connected.
6. Conclusions
This paper has offered a critical assessment of the discourses developed by two medium-sized Italian
coastal cities during the discussion of their future by engaging in collaborative strategic planning.
With both cities in need of updating their competitive profile, Rimini and Pesaro have sought to re-
assess their traditional background of mass tourist and industrial areas and redefine the role held by
tourism within the contemporary scenario. This paper has argued, in fact, that little has been said on
the regeneration strategies put forward by those coastal cities in which tourism had already developed

in the framework of a Fordist economy during the 20th century, and few studies thus far have
focussed on coastal cities which were neither major ports nor major beach resorts. The idea of a
“culture city” emerges in both cases as the most appropriate pathway to innovation, change and
progress by scripting the story of cohesive and networked places that resonates, to a large extent, with
the several cases of culture-led regeneration featured in the urban studies literature. Yet this
redeeming role of culture takes different appreciations according to the specific character and history
of the two places, with the role of the sea and the seaside being the main factor.
The study has shown the ambiguous relationship between the two coexisting models of a “seaside
city”, understood as a legacy of the entrepreneurial spirit of the past and a “culture city” imbued with
a renewed awareness for the value of cultural urban assets (Smith, Robinson 2006: 5). In the case of
Pesaro, we witnessed planners’ distancing of themselves from the sea and seaside, explicitly
detaching Pesaro from the “Rimini model” based on the mass provision of beach attractions and
hospitality services. This can be seen as a means of differentiation that is supposed to bring along a
competitive advantage in relation to Rimini itself, which the planners of Pesaro regarded as a
“negative” benchmark. Thus, the result is a dominant discourse about the need to entice a more
sophisticated tourist demand that is associated with cultural and urban tourism. In Rimini, conversely,
the leitmotif of the sea and seaside as implied in (and embedded within) this culture-led regeneration
process gives shape to a less predictable formula for development in which traditional assets of the
city (the beach culture, the hospitality culture) are rediscovered and channelled into more innovative
pathways, as illustrated by the notion of “sea wellness”.
It is hard to deny that in both cities, overcoming a simplistic model of the provision of mass
seaside tourism reveals novel possibilities for conceiving alternative types of tourism. Business
tourism and MICE (Meeting Incentives Conferences and Events) illustrate a common path that has
already been undertaken by both cities, particularly by Rimini that has been investing significantly in
enlarging its exhibition centre and congress and in attracting major national conferences since the
2000s. This approach to tourism development, of course, would be not conceivable if the beach
facilities of Rimini and Pesaro were located outside of a true urban context that includes a variety of
other physical and symbolic resources (e.g. archaeological sites, shopping facilities, cultural
attractions such as libraries, etc.). Yet the case of Rimini is particularly original since the sea and the
seaside are not “distanced” and blurred in a more general overarching discourse on culture; instead,
these factors maintain a very important role to play.
On the one hand, several academic commentators have identified cultural tourism as a harmless
and distinctive resource that is respectful for the landscape and the local population and, as such, is a
preferable path to sustainable tourism. Moreover, cultural tourism is presented in both the plans of
Rimini and Pesaro as a tool to amalgamate the interests of different stakeholders and different
departments of the local governments. However, this does not mean that any discourse based on
culture-led regeneration, especially when this comes too close to an unquestioned faith or an ideology,

should be uncritically celebrated. In the cases presented, the sea and seaside more specifically emerge
as particular ambiguous environmental and cultural constructs to be further investigated Scholars
should be encouraged to remain critical and conscious of the meaning-attribution process through
which some urban resources are regarded as “cultural” while others are not. In other words, the
mechanisms and the key actors that convert local assets into acknowledged legitimate forms of culture
which are expected to drive future urban development should not be taken for granted. Some local
resources, in fact, might be downplayed and will never reach the status of a “cultural attraction” that is
so craved at the moment.
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