From Data Collection to a Cross-Cutting Analysis Visualisation: Territorial Complexity Overview to Foster Responsible Tourism in Rural Areas

In recent years, design expertise has become crucial for fostering connections between stakeholders and driving bottom-up processes to address complex challenges in fragile territorial contexts. This is evident in the struggles of both public and private organisations to strengthen collaborations and tackle territorial complexity issues faced by rural areas and fragile territories across Europe, such as depopulation, ageing populations, and unsustainable tourism patterns. While mass tourism threatens economic development in these regions, sustainable and responsible tourism strategies present an opportunity to enhance attractiveness and well-being. This paper focuses on using Systemic Design and Socio-Economic evaluation approaches to bolster responsible tourism development in rural areas by involving stakeholders within the tourism value chain and managing a structured enhancement process that starts with data collection and comes to cross-cutting analysis visualisation able to support co-design initiatives. Drawing insights from the SYSTOUR project, the paper explores ways to understand the intertwining of the elements of the system to find a balance between tourism-generated revenue and sustainable and even regenerative territorial development.