The Model Do-Di: An Emerging Methodology for the Management of the Relation Between Tourism, Culture and Development

The study traces the scientific literature and the policies connected to the relation between tourism, culture, and sustainable development at international level. Three main trends emerge from this review, and they are focused on mutual impacts, culture as a form of tourism, namely cultural tourism, and the common objective of sustainable development. In order to maximize the benefits that the relation between tourism and culture may bring to the development of destinations and communities, this study highlights a need for a change of paradigm in tourism. The paradigm of integration adopted in this study comes from the application of Mode 2 to tourism by J. Tribe in the 1990s, and reinforced through the integrative frameworks created by Pearce (2012), as an instrument to improve the research of tourism in the future. The purpose of the study is to explain the application from theory to practice of the paradigm of integration. This has been carried out through the adaptation of the dimensions of integration of sustainability, created by Dovers (2005), to a case study where the relation between tourism and culture has a strong significance for the local development, such as in the capitals of culture. Through the identification of domains, which are common to the European Capital of Culture (EcoC), the Matrix Do-Di (Domains-Dimensions) composed by 111 indicators, has been created. The matrix, which has been tested in Valletta as European Capital of Culture 2018, is a tool for the assessment of the process of development that an EcoC, an EcoC candidate, or any city, can bring to its community, starting from the integration between tourism and culture.