From peripheral hamlet to craft beer capital: Apecchio and the ‘Alogastronomia’

Abstract

In 2012, the Italian Ministry for Territorial Cohesion launched the ‘National Strategy for Inner Areas’ (SNAI), a development strategy aimed at enhancing the quality of life and the access to essential services (health, education and transport) in areas considerably far from urban centres, which have been suffering from processes of increasing marginalisation and de-anthropisation since the 1950s. The current contribution focuses on how tourism is locally interpreted in peripheral areas, taking the cue from a wider research on the implementation of SNAI in the Marche’s Apennines carried out between 2015 and 2016. The underlying hypothesis is that the creation of a tourism market in such areas requires, on the one hand, the selection of few cultural traits perceived as more ‘charismatic’, often enhanced through dedicated events, and, on the other, the creation of new potential attractors in line with the expectations of prospective rural tourists. In particular, the ‘Alogastronomia’ phenomenon will be analysed, highlighting the cultural and environmental factors which have brought the local administration to create a territorial marketing strategy linked to a peculiar craft beer and gastronomic culture, and considering whether specific niche tourism can contribute to giving some kind of ‘centrality’ to areas otherwise considered as marginal.