ID60: Smart Mountain Villages
Details
Full Title
Smart Villages in mountain areas: The role of technological and social innovation in sustaining local communities. State of the art, applications and future directions.
Scheduled
Convener
Co-Conveners
Maria Nijnik, Marine Elbakidze, Lela Khartishvili and Mariana Melnykovych
Assigned to Synthesis Workshop
4. Social innovation and community resource management
Keywords
Smart Villages, Rural development, Technology, Digitalisation, Social innovation
Description
Environmental concerns, economic recession and the Covid-19 pandemic crisis are threatening rural societies. To sustain rural communities, in 2017 the EU launched the Smart Village Initiative and the European Commission published the EU Action for Smart Villages document. Smart Villages aim to amend both services and business activities for improving the quality of life of citizens, by relying on social innovation and digital technologies. Smartization can be seen as a flywheel to foster local economy and enhance the resilience of villages as socio-ecological systems. In mountain areas, however, smartization faces a number of constraints, including of the geographical and cultural context and adequate investments. This focus session aims to become a platform for discussing Smart Villages, its application in different European mountain ranges (Alps, Carpathian and Caucasus) and assessing future research and operative directions. Examples of technological and social innovation actions and lessons learned from case studies are welcome.
Registered Abstracts
Abstract ID 355 | Date: 2022-09-14 16:00 – 16:13 | Type: Oral Presentation | Place: SOWI – Seminar room SR2 | 
Beltramo, Riccardo; Peira, Giovanni
University of Turin, Italy
Keywords: Smart Tourism, Quality Of Life, Competitiveness, Stakeholder Approach
Alagna Valsesia is a rural alpine municipality in the North of Piedmont (Italy), located in Alta Valsesia Natural Park, together with Mount Rosa, the second-highest peak of the Alps. The area has been a tourist destination since the end of the XIX century, thanks to its landscape, nature, outdoor activities i.e. skiing in winter and hiking in summer. Local traditions enhanced still today are related to the Walser population, who have started living in the Mount Rosa valleys since the XIII century.
The aim of the "Alagna Walser Green Paradise" research project is to gather useful data, in cooperation with local stakeholders, for sustainable development and responsible tourism plans. The project started in February 2021 and lasts for two years.
The five pillars of the research are "Cultural Heritage & Creativity", "Environmental Sustainability", "Digitalization", "Accessibility" and "Quality of Life". The "Cultural Heritage & Creativity" examines in depth the themes related to food and wine production, architecture, landscape and culture of Alagna Valsesia. The "Environmental Sustainability" analyzes the relationship between human activities and the environment. "Digitalization" explore the theme of the smart village whilst the "Accessibility" discuss the topic of people with special needs (motorial, sensorial, dietary, etc. difficulties) or specific targets (families with children, elderly people, etc.).
The "Quality of Life" (QoL) would measures the competitiveness of mountain destinations. There are numerous models for measuring the quality of life at an international and national level but none are applicable to the mountain territory. The aim of this pillar is to develop a model that identifies some of the most significant QoL aspects for a mountain municipality, as Alagna Valsesia is. A model that could be replicable in similar alpine destinations. Quantitative measures, together with qualitative ones – related to happiness and well-being, were considered and discussed with local stakeholders. The application in Alagna Valsesia allows the team to understand the state of the art and identify the sector(s) in which it is most important and urgent to act.
The direct involvement of local stakeholders (public institutions, companies, associations, tourist operators, tourist, residents) is essential in each of the above-mentioned pillars. The research team pursues a bottom-up approach, in order to share objectives and collect stakeholders' point of view about opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses.
Abstract ID 532 | Date: 2022-09-14 16:13 – 16:26 | Type: Oral Presentation | Place: SOWI – Seminar room SR2 |
Urriza, Julián Ignacio; Aragón-Correa, Juan Alberto; Delgado-Márquez, Blanca Luisa
Universidad de Granada, Spain
Keywords: Smart Destinations, Smart Tourism, Resilient Tourism, Digitalisation,
The health emergency that the world is facing as a result of COVID-19 is having a great impact on people's health and way of life, which is why the European Union's industrial strategy highlights the need to accelerate even more ecological and digital transitions, increasing the resilience of industrial ecosystems.
Tourism has been one of the sectors most affected by this crisis, with accommodation, air travel, other international travel, fairs, and cultural events being the hardest hit in this ecosystem. This hard blow for the activity is, in turn, a new great opportunity to learn from experience and rebuild better, in terms of resilience and sustainability, benefiting from digital opportunities and innovation.
In this new scenario, technology is presented as a strategic ally to take into account when developing and managing new recovery plans for the sector, as well as to support and sustain radical changes in the way companies operate and operate intervening parties. Technological solutions must, now more than ever, help contribute and generate confidence in tourists and visitors, offering them pleasant and safe experiences; thereby improving the operational efficiencies of tourism companies.
This work is part of Smart EcoMountains, the Mountain Thematic Center of LifeWatch-ERIC. It also takes as a reference the digitalization to contribute to greater sustainability of the tourist activity in the Natural Park of Sierra Nevada through a sensor network. Additionally, this project seeks to provide the municipalities of Pampaneira, Bubión, and Capileira with a system to improve the management of certain elements such as traffic control, security, flow control, surveillance, visitor counting, as well as to provide air quality data at different points of interest.
Abstract ID 462 | Date: 2022-09-14 16:26 – 16:39 | Type: Oral Presentation | Place: SOWI – Seminar room SR2 |
Duglio, Stefano
University of Torino, Italy
Keywords: Mountain Tourism, Smart Technologies, Destination Management
A tourism destination can be defined as "a geographical region, political jurisdiction, or major attraction, which seeks to provide visitors with a range of satisfying to memorable visitation experiences" (Bornhorst et al., 2010). In considering mountain contexts, a tourism destination may assume different perspectives: from vast geographical areas, as natural parks, to regions explicitly devoted to tourism activities, as ski resorts, characterized by territorial hallmarks – as a distinguishing mountain, a traditional mountain village, a cultural event/festival, a veneration place – able to contribute to the attractiveness of the area. In this heterogeneous panorama, the application of new technologies can play an important role in promoting mountain tourism destinations by giving a new set of services for enhancing the visitors' experience.
This contribution reports a case study under the umbrella of smartization of tourism activities for a specific territorial hallmark. The aim of it is to boost a minor mountain destination in the Italian Alps, the Soana Valley – Piedmont Region – by integrating smart technologies with a devotion place, the Sanctuary of San Besso. The Sanctuary of San Besso (2,019 m a.s.l.), reachable on foot in two hours' hiking from the village of Campiglia Soana, represents an important religious attraction in Soana Valley and hosts hundreds of hikers every year. The project carried out thanks to a scientific collaboration between the University of Torino and the Municipality of Valprato Soana, aims at renovating the 4 chapel-shrines alongside the path that leads to the Sanctuary. Together with the recovery of the ancient iconographies and the architectural and structural renovation of the chapel-shrines, smart panels will be integrated. The panels will contain a set of basic information (altitude, distance, location, etc.) and a QR-Code, in order either to enrich the tourism experience by providing more evidence on the cultural and natural context either to share practical tourism information on the hospitality sector, local habits, typical local productions and important tourism events.
This action has to be considered as a first and forward-looking attempt of traditional artifacts' recovery in this area by integrating smart technologies as a flywheel for fostering a small mountain tourism destination.
References
Bornhorst, T; Brent Ritchie, J.R.,: Sheehan, L. (2010) Determinants of tourism success for DMOs & destinations: an empirical examination of stakeholders' perspectives. Tourism Management 31: 572-589.
Abstract ID 342 | Date: 2022-09-14 16:39 – 16:52 | Type: Oral Presentation | Place: SOWI – Seminar room SR2 |
Dini, Roberto; Tempestini, Matteo; Dallere, Cristian
Politecnico di Torino, Dipartimento di Architettura e Design, Istituto di Architettura Montana
Keywords: Regeneration, Heritage, Reuse, Smart, Social Innovation, Technological Innovation
One of the main constraints in the transition to smart villages in mountain areas is the lack of adequate infrastructures and physical spaces that contain them. With a view to sustainability, it is fundamental to adopt technological innovations that could permit the reuse of abandoned or underdeveloped building heritage.
A series of structures and infrastructures have been built in the Alpine territory during the Modern Age. Today they represent an enormous building potential. Many of these have lost their original use and today require a morphological and functional rethinking. Architectural regeneration permits to have buildings that are technologically suitable for the smart transition fostered by the European Union. This process will also incentivize the creation of a system of services for new forms of living in the territory.
The current historical phase, characterized by the Covid-19 pandemic, has contributed substantially to a change of vision towards the mountain and marginal contexts, where is possible to develop a smart and more sustainable living and housing model. Mountain areas should intercept these trends, using them as a driving force for the smartization of the territory. They can also contribute to the rediscovery of a productive dimension of the mountains, far from any rhetoric of tourist consumption of them.
This paper aims to investigate the possibilities of reusing this heritage, and what types of technological and social innovation can be brought in mountain areas by renewed architectural artifacts. The focus is on the case study of Valle d'Aosta, a region in the Italian western Alps. Here, the underutilized or neglected building heritage consists of abandoned or only seasonally-used hotels, former industrial structures, depopulated villages, former summer colonies, etc. Each of them with different characteristics and possible uses.
This paper is part of a research carried out by the IAM (Instituto di Architettura Montana) of the Polytechnic of Turin. The research consists of a census of abandoned or underused public structures and the lack of primary services in the territory, creating a grid with these two data, and declining the buildings according to their most functional destinations. The final scope of the research is to help public administrations intercept the inhabitants' needs and decide in which places should be fulfilled.
