Aggregation and Innovation in rural tourism: tourist destination of the "hundred country houses"

This paper aims at analyzing particular network organizational systems which consider strategic aggregation as the core of the value generation processes. It will analyze the new organization of the rural area in a macro dimension through a “cultural-tourist route” realized with the cooperation of public and private operators, strongly stimulating and innovative, formed by ancient country houses, woods, ravines, archeological parks and rupestrian settlements. For the analysis on desk, the search for theoretical models and managerial tools useful to the territory operators will take place in studies of Destination Management; while on field analysis will be conducted by questionnaire in order to investigate about the advantages of country houses aggregation and multistakeholders offer systems. The questionnaire will be administered to a sample of ten country houses, most of which are agricultural and zootechnical firms, located in the rural tourist destination of Crispiano and Grottaglie, with more than a hundred country houses, in the Ionian area. Following the Destination Management literature, this research will highlight the attitude towards cooperation among local operators, rural communities, country houses, public institutions, which aims to enhance the tourist system made of attractors, tangible and intangible resources for the purpose of competitiveness of the destination.