Slow tourism in the ETNA Meso Region: discovering the rural space with the Circumetnea railway

For several decades, economic restructuring and the agricultural crisis have reduced the economic opportunities of rural communities. One of the most effective strategies to combat rural decline is tourism. Tourism has the ability to generate income and create jobs directly, as well as induce other kinds of economic activity. The aim of the research is to propose innovative, sustainable and relational types of tourist use that increases opportunities for tourists to penetrate peripheral places to visit and to create experiences of exchange between tourists and local communities, thus recognizing those communities ́cultural, social and spiritual dimensions. The proposal for a geo-itinerary becomes more relevant when it involves more peripheral territories rather than the most important economic centers. It is also true that the connections between tourists and transport activities are equally consolidates, since it is true that the same configuration of tourism, interpreted as an escape from the usual places, evokes transport and its essential use. The opportunity to integrate different types of sustainable and already existing transport, therefore, makes the hypothesis even more feasible, having to focus primarily on the relationship between the means of transport and the territory. In accordance with the Europe2020 strategy and its approach to emphasizing and promoting growth through a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy of the EU ́s territories, our case study, the Etna Meso Region (EMR), outlines a common path between urban and rural development.