The cultural and environmental resources for sustainable development of rural areas in economically disadvantaged contexts. Economic-appraisals issues of a model of management for the valorisation of public assets

Available resources to public policies are always limited: those intended for culture, too often considered non-essential to the development of the community, they are often essential in particular way. Ignoring the economic value of cultural resources, their conservation, costs and total benefits of cultural policies and investment projects with a strong cultural component, can lead to non-optimal allocation of resources, to degradation of cultural capital and to failure to exploit opportunities for development. Another important aspect is the use of resources for the physical recovery and reuse of assets, without adequate attention to the phase of management: too often you find yourself with assets recovered but unused due to the lack of resources for management. A method tested recently is the involvement of private companies in these activities: in economically stronger and more advanced realities, the size of the most significant tourist flows allows to reach levels of return on investment and so makes this a feasible solution. Cultural resources in the rural settings of the most economically disadvantaged areas are characterized by a not elevated number of visitors not spread in the same way throughout the whole year: in these conditions, because of their different costs structures, a company may not have sufficient profit margins, but a private non-profit organizations can achieve a balanced budget that allows the usability of assets of fundamental importance into development strategies based on cultural tourism. This paper focuses on the main economic appraisal aspects and illustrates a management model, economically sustainable, for the tourist value of cultural and environmental resources, particularly suitable to be applied in rural contexts and in economically disadvantaged realities; the analyzed case study is indeed located in Gerace, ionic inland town of Calabria, region of southern Italy.