Nello scenario attuale la gran parte delle città è impegnata in investimenti nel settore turistico al fine di rendersi maggiormente competitive e di attrarre investimenti. Questo rinnovato interesse verso il settore turistico e del tempo libero ha generato una nuova tipologia turistica riconosciuta come turismo urbano, sviluppatosi sostanzialmente durante tutti gli anni Novanta. Partendo dalla consapevolezza che lo spostamento sia una condizione necessaria allo svolgimento della pratica turistica tout court e di quella urbana in particolare, l’articolo tenta di mettere in evidenza la capacità di adattamento dell’offerta di trasporto urbano alle esigenze turistiche. La relazione tra sistema di trasporto urbano e pratica turistica, se esiste, può essere analizzata alla luce dei principali interventi messi in campo per adattare l’offerta di trasporto alle richieste di un’utenza temporanea ma con una forte incidenza sul bilancio economico della città.
This paper deals with leisure mobility that is a special form of mobility enabled by tourists in urban areas. As a matter of fact, tourism activity occupies a central role in the economies of cities today. Most of the processes of urban renewal actually still in progress always provide investment in tourism and leisure. The metropolitan areas as well as small and medium-sized cities, to redefine its development model stake on the rejuvenation of the tourism and culture in order to attract visitors and tourists. In this context, the urban supply system for tourism-oriented services has been enhanced with new ways of enjoying the city. Transport supply to enable travel within the city plays a significant role. Sometimes the mean of transport turns into a tourist attraction itself both giving value to tourist experience and improving accessibility to urban attractions. The first part of this paper refers to theoretical aspect of the tourism phenomenon. This is to underline how tourism is a complex phenomenon and it needs the construction of an analytical framework to synthesize its multidisciplinary aspects. The systems approach helps to reduce complexity by a simplified model allowing to understand how different elements fit together (Page 2003: 22). In such a vision, tourist demand and tourist supply can be considered as two sub-systems of the tourism system. Demand analysis is the basis of economic evaluations. Supply analysis mainly refers to what the city has to be attractive. To simplify, one can argue that demand activates by the need of change and supply is something that could be better arranged. So, in the tourist process, demand could be considered as a “push factor” while supply could represent a “pull factor”. The supply system can be regarded as composed of three major components: the local resources, the services in support of tourism and the facilities for mobility. The transport system is an important component of the supply system and it is a strongly attractive factors affecting tourist choice. In the second part of the paper some aspect of mobility are discusses. The aim is to demonstrate that some differeces exist between urban mobility and leisure mobility especially if we refer to the disposal of time and the way to move. In the final part, starting from the consideration that displacements are the “sine qua non” condition for tourism, the paper offers an overview of the main examples of tourist supply of transport aimed at improving the attraction of the city. Private sector is much more present than public in supporting innovative forms of moving in the city. Public sentor is much more engaged in managing the effects of tourism on the city. As the paper shows the integration between the urban transport system and tourism is a still difficult to achieve. Success depends exclusively on coordination between all actors involved.