CULTURAL TOURISM BETWEEN LOCAL DEVELOPMENT AND INTERREGIONAL COOPERATION. THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES ON THE MEDITERRANEAN SOUTH AREAS ROMAN ITINERARIES (MESA-ROMIT)

The main of this paper is to find, at Mediterranean level, new ways of preservation and management of the archaeological sites of Roman origin, and integrating them into the local development policies. The idea of an itinerary, or rather network of itineraries, on the basis of the Peutinger’s Tabula is enormously fascinating. And just this evocative charm the project of the ROMIT was born. It approved by the Steering Committee of the Interreg III-B CADSES programme in December 2003 and has reached high levels of research in the economic, social field, and spatial design among the five countries (Italy, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece). Two important and significant factors was be deemed: Heritage, as a combination of intangible elements (as traditions, values and beliefs, and tangible elements and as works of art, craft, buildings and landscape), is an important element of social identification as well as a sphere of various personal interests; secondly the Heritage can be transformed in specific tourist products. The itinerary - the route adopted for a journey or a tourist visit –, is a strategic and more and more important element in the development of postmodern tourism both for the single tour operator and in the tourist territorial planning; thus the cultural itineraries are the very important experience tourism in this time. Among the expected results of Romit project there was the achievement of a common development model for archaeological sites, easy to be replicated and based on transnational juridical and economic studies and surveys, and design of a cultural route of the Roman archaeological sites, via a web site in charge of managing and marketing the cultural route( www.romit.org). This paper proposes to transfer these experiences and expertise on the Africa Roman roads and the Middle East well drawn on the Peutinger’s Tabula. The general goals are: to develop a process of economic and political reconstruction among the borders and the regions of the Southern Mediterranean (LDC); to disseminate the experience of the project ROMIT for archaeological sites of Roman origin, incorporating them in local development policy, with special attention to cultural tourism, the quality of environment, products and local services to promoting sustainable development. Our observations here on tourist itineraries will follow an economic, geographical approach, with spatial, and area analysis. A number of priorities can be initially identified and subsequently investigated logistically: - Political objective oriented towards the Mediterranean Africa , in this first phase; - Recognition of Tunisi as a main node being the arrival point from Tangeri and the departure point to Alexandria - Re-scaling, with the use of zoom in with regional, inter-regional and local level; - Identification of regional or local nodes for an itinerary network. The contribution of the Peutinger’s Tabula to our knowledge of the territory concerned is enormous. It can rightly be seen as a compendium of ancient knowledge of the world, also showing how the Romans were keen to explore land beyond the frontiers of the Empire and encounter places and people with different ways of life. It is now time for this shared heritage of European regions to be recognised in its cultural values, so as to set up a common future on the basis of a common past.