Paper info

Distributed and dynamic supply chains in the heritage tourism:the case of “distributed hospitality” (albergo diffuso) in Italy.

Andreina Mandelli and Antonella La Rocca

The paper was published at the 21st IMP-conference in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 2005.

This paper is concerned with the study of heritage networks at local level. This is a case analysis thatwishes to give a contribution to our understanding on the formation, evolution and performance ofbusiness networks and network-based markets.We offer our contribution to building understanding on these critical questions, studying the networksemerged in the heritage tourism, and in particular the networks formed under the general formulanamed “albergo diffuso” (distributed hospitality) in Italy. For this study we have applied the IMPconceptual approach to business markets, and the ARA methodology for the analysis of networkrelationships, with a comparative approach.We can define the networks’ structures (boundaries and organization) that we have studied ascomplex and evolutionary; they have emerged as complex socio-cognitively constructed outcomes ofsocial adaptations,. The networks, in fact, are not built out of abstract, static and overimposed“identities” of the local communities, but - instead – they have emerged from the interlinks between thelocal heritage and a “vision” of the territory that the network initiator proposes to the local and nonlocalcommunities. The different openness of the networks and their translocalism (that is culturallydriven) makes the biggest difference in the processes and the outcomes. Managerial implications arediscussed.