Representational and non-representational Matera landscape: from top-down to bottom-up building of a site image

Some specific aspects concerning the Conference topic result from a deep and continuous analysis of Matera town together with the effects of its candidature and nomination as European Capital of Culture for 20191. Although ECoC Bid Book was mainly focused on cultural objectives, it aimed at attracting at least 600.000 visitors in 2019 and at the same time supporting a low-impact tourism model for Matera, which is a medium-sized town of only 60.000 inhabitants. It was not by chance that the event’s organisers have considered Airbnb as an important stakeholder and also a partner to be involved in some urban regeneration projects. But the research was focused mainly on qualitative aspects of Matera’s touristic development rather than quantitative ones. In particular, the research was aimed at understanding a) if and how the social interaction between tourists and residents - specifically the host-guest interaction – have contributed to the building of Matera’s landscape image, b) if the Matera image has been innovated and through which social processes this innovation has occurred, c) which cultural, political and economic role the local institutions have played into this process, also as ‘custodians’ of narratives about genius loci. This study has followed mainly representational and non-representational approaches and it is the result of the application of different methods, ranging from semi-structured interview with key stakeholders involved in the ECoC process to content analysis and environment-behaviour methods. It discusses the results obtained from semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders involved in the ECoC process and also from analysis and environment-behaviour methods.