GEO AND HISTORICAL HERITAGE SUSTAINABLE TOURISM AND OUTREACH ACROSS SWISS-ITALIAN ALPS. “THE PATHS OF VIA REGINA” PROJECT

“The Paths of Via Regina” is an EU financed project which aims at promoting the Alpine region between Italy and Switzerland covered by many historical paths departing from the old “Via Regina”.

The project involves both Italian and Swiss universities, museums, nonprofit organizations and local governements, with their tourist and cultural departements. Its aim is to give a high touristic and cultural value to the geological and historical heritage of this region, trough the creation of a net of walks and events dedicated to tourists and students.

The “Cammini della Regina” are ancient historical routes that represented an important network for cultural and commercial exchanges throughout Europe and nowadays represents a fundamental transalpine system of soft mobility links.

Some of the project's objectives are:

• planning the historical and geological heritage, taking evaluation about conservation of the sites;
• taking actions to give values to these sites inside the local tourist economy;
• creating educational activities (tours, “map parties”, conferences and so on).

Among others, the final products will be:

• the Via Regina geoportal that will provide two different viewers: a bi-dimensional one (for both traditional computers and mobile devices) and a multidimensional, both of them providing services and information for all kinds of soft-tourism (pedestrian, by bicycle and on horseback). Besides getting useful information from the geoportal for optimally organizing their trips, users can also enrich the geoportal through the contents (e.g. pictures and videos) collected during the trip and shared with the community;
• the development and implementation of innovative technological tools such as: (i) multi-dimensional view which enhances the perception of immersion into the landscape by providing the virtual traveler with a richer experience to. (ii) Web GIS that allows the visitor to add in a simple way relevant contents (photos, documents, travel notes), which become heritage of the whole community. (iii) Augmented reality and virtual content tools.

The project is developed using free and open source tools for processing, cataloguing, querying, editing and Web publishing maps.