Abstract This article explores the legal and institutional implications of sustainable tourism, focusing on how the conformation of real property rights can serve as a strategic instrument for the integrated valorization of territories. Starting from the international and European definitions of sustainable tourism—rooted in the balance among environmental, social, cultural, and economic dimensions—the author argues that the relationship between tourism activities and territory cannot be addressed merely through sectoral regulation or vincolistic logic, but requires a systemic rethinking of the categories governing property, public powers, and citizenship rights. In this perspective, the territory is no longer conceived as a neutral spatial support for economic activities, but as a complex common good, stratified with environmental, historical, and social values, and as a "space of potentiality" within a circular dynamic that takes value from the territory and gives value back to it. The article emphasizes territorial programming as a central tool—not reducible to urban planning or to the strategic planning of "single tourisms"—but understood, in line with Marino's teaching, as a democratic method to harmonize equality and freedom, public and private autonomy. Through references to the European Landscape Convention, the Faro Convention, and recent constitutional jurisprudence (including Constitutional Court judgment no. 186/2025), the author shows how real property rights must be reconfigured in a functional and relational dimension, capable of mediating between private economic initiative and general interests such as landscape protection, the right to housing, and the contrast of overtourism. The conclusion stresses that, without a strengthening of public regulatory instruments and a redefinition of the limits and responsibilities tied to the exercise of real rights, the invocation of sustainability risks becoming a rhetorical category, functional to legitimizing processes of privatization and social exclusion rather than fostering the regeneration of territories and their communities.
Turismo sostenibile e conformazione dei diritti reali: un approccio integrato per la valorizzazione dei territori
Loredana Giani
2026-01-01
Abstract
Abstract This article explores the legal and institutional implications of sustainable tourism, focusing on how the conformation of real property rights can serve as a strategic instrument for the integrated valorization of territories. Starting from the international and European definitions of sustainable tourism—rooted in the balance among environmental, social, cultural, and economic dimensions—the author argues that the relationship between tourism activities and territory cannot be addressed merely through sectoral regulation or vincolistic logic, but requires a systemic rethinking of the categories governing property, public powers, and citizenship rights. In this perspective, the territory is no longer conceived as a neutral spatial support for economic activities, but as a complex common good, stratified with environmental, historical, and social values, and as a "space of potentiality" within a circular dynamic that takes value from the territory and gives value back to it. The article emphasizes territorial programming as a central tool—not reducible to urban planning or to the strategic planning of "single tourisms"—but understood, in line with Marino's teaching, as a democratic method to harmonize equality and freedom, public and private autonomy. Through references to the European Landscape Convention, the Faro Convention, and recent constitutional jurisprudence (including Constitutional Court judgment no. 186/2025), the author shows how real property rights must be reconfigured in a functional and relational dimension, capable of mediating between private economic initiative and general interests such as landscape protection, the right to housing, and the contrast of overtourism. The conclusion stresses that, without a strengthening of public regulatory instruments and a redefinition of the limits and responsibilities tied to the exercise of real rights, the invocation of sustainability risks becoming a rhetorical category, functional to legitimizing processes of privatization and social exclusion rather than fostering the regeneration of territories and their communities.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
