underestimate the critical legal issues that often stand in the way of the enthusiasm of maximum spread of digital tourism.56 Suffice it to think in this regard, just to give an example under everyone’s eyes, of the lack of resources and know-how, of the difficulties of decisions on what and how to digitize, of legal constraints on copyright, or on contracts and restrictions of not insignificant donors. Not to mention the difficulties very often related to the simple way of using the catalogs displayed online whose consultation not infrequently, due to still complex technical infrastructures and the considerable problems of digital divide57 , presuppose a more than rightminded tourist who knows who, and what to look for. Cultural heritage is, for the reasons just stated, a very important frontier of work that should certainly be taken into account in terms of the development of smart cities and tourism that can also be exploited digitally. Museums, and more generally cultural heritage, have always represented, and still represent, the primary reason placed at the foundation of tourist destinations traditionally promoted to learn about the past or even just to have fun. The adoption of digital technologies can in our view improve all museum activities, and it is certainly good that in this regard increasingly timely business models are being developed for specific support of digital tourism. 58 For these reasons, and also on the basis of the foreseeable development of our cities in the sign of circular economies and the sharing of common goods, we declare ourselves entirely confident with respect to the fact that future lines of research will succeed in demonstrating very soon, and much more than what can be observed so far, that the extent to which digital heritage tourism is included in the dynamics of tourism and cultural promotion will also depend without a shadow of a doubt on social progress and a greater sense of well-being in our communities, whether small or large.59 56 Cf., the analysis of A. Sandulli, The “Digital State”. Public and private in strategic national digital infrastructure, in Riv. trim. dir. pubbl., 2021. 57 Among several see in particular the very recent work by S. Petroccia, Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Divide. New sociological perspectives on inequality, Carocci 2024. As well as for further bibliographical references G. Pesci Il digital divide, substantive equality and the right to education, in Ciberspazio e Diritto, Mucchi editore 2-2021. 58 See, E. Panzera, Cultural heritage, tourism and local economic growth: an empirical confirmation of their interaction, in Sc. Reg., 2022. 59 Moreover, making our own the invitation of V. Brigante, L’heritage in digital form. reflections for a renewed approach to cultural tourism in L. Giani (ed.) Turismo e Territori, op. ult. cit. Naples 2024, in whose opinion within the apparatuses of modern societies there is a direct tendency to achieve higher and higher levels of technical impersonality, but the synthesis between the tourist experience and the sustainable development of its return to the territories, in terms of potential development, even if it takes place through digital, must have regard to the perception and experience through the places, including intangible ones, of culture. Otherwise, even the digitization of cultural 178 FRANCESCO GASPARI | LUIGI CAMERIERO
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