ICOMOS charter for cultural tourism: governance, operator skills and evaluation aspects in strategic planning for the rebalancing of flows between overtourism and undertourism

This article constitutes the start of a path of in-depth analysis of the evaluation aspects connected with the use of the strategic planning methodology for the organization of the tourist offer and the sustainable management of Cultural Tourism, in light of the indications contained in the ICOMOS Charter for Cultural Tourism adopted in 2022. After a quick excursus on the various doctrinal texts produced by ICOMOS on the subject of Cultural Tourism from 1976 to today, the article examines in particular the innovations introduced by the 2022 Charter. Particular attention is paid to the topic of Management Plans, within which relevance must be given to the control of the carrying capacity of the sites, both in the ex ante phase and in the ongoing phase. The entities that appear most capable of correctly transferring the principles established in the Charter into reality are the Destination Management Organizations, to the extent that they equip themselves with strategic planning tools, within which evaluations take on a decisive role for the purposes of understanding of the impacts of tourism on the Heritage, but also to verify the effectiveness of the plans’ actions, their feasibility and sustainability, as well as any redistributive effects produced.