"Cultural-tourism experiences": creating value for cultural tourists and stakeholders and developing the cultural patrimony of the destination. The example of "Marcheholiday"

The growing search for authentic, personalized and participatory experiences by the postmodern tourist forces local authorities, tourism businesses and cultural institutions to look for new ways to maintain the competitiveness of tourism products destination. In this paper we focused on the cultural-tourism experiences as special touristic products capable to meet the needs of the segment of cultural tourists and to exploit cultural heritage of the touristic destinations. In particular, the papers aims to qualify the tourist-cultural experiences and to describe the process of creating the above mentioned experiences using as a conceptual framework the process of creating value for consumers developed in the recent marketing studies, adapted with the contributions of the literature on experiential marketing, cultural marketing and destination management. Evidence has been obtained by the case study of Marcheholiday, an incoming Tour Operator of Acqualagna, a small town in the province of Pesaro and Urbino which plays a strategic role in the creation of tourist-cultural experiences for the international segment of cultural tourists and by secondary data on cultural tourism in the region Marche.

Keywords: Cultural tourism, cultural-tourism experiences, experiential marketing, cultural marketing, destination management, tour operator.

• Cultural assets. New opportunities for the region Piergiorgio Re, Bernardo Bertoldi, Fabrizio Mosca, Margherita Stupino, Chiara Giachino, in MERCATI E COMPETITIVITÀ 2/2016 pp.13
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Emanulea Conti, Simone Moriconi, Le "esperienze turistico-culturali": creare valore per i turisti culturali e gli stakeholders e valorizzare il patrimonio culturale della destinazione turistica. Il caso "Marcheholiday"* in "MERCATI E COMPETITIVITÀ" 4/2012, pp 73-98, DOI: 10.3280/MC2012-004006