Mapping tourist landscapes in pandemic times: a dwelling-in-motion perspective

Abstract

The landscape–tourism nexus has been the subject of many scientific contributions that differ in nature and methodological approach. Beyond sectorial planning assessments and impact evaluations, which often fail to grasp this complex relationship, this paper draws on conceptual frameworks in the social sciences and humanities that define the nexus through the productive potential of mobilities, bodily presences and interactions to investigate tourist landscapes in pandemic times. More precisely, the blended concept of dwelling-in-motion is adopted to explore tourist landscapes as evolving constellations of intertwined places and practices of people engaging with empty spaces, redescribing their functions and values and defining new forms of proximity tourism. This study focuses on the Brenta Riviera in northeastern Italy between Padua and Venice—an extremely dense area in terms of landscape stratifications and an exemplary local case where the effects of COVID-19 restrictions have been reshaping physical orderings, social relations and cultural meanings. During the third wave of the pandemic in Italy, a mapping process based on an online survey collected significant georeferenced landscapes among visitors, residents and operators, unveiling multiple and often unexpected Riviera landscapes as expressions of changing attitudes and behaviours towards neighbouring places. Calling for intimate well-being or collective involvement, ‘newcomers-on-the-move’ have been blurring the lines between daily, recreational and tourist landscapes, leading to a reconsideration of who can be a tourist and what can be a tourist landscape in a (post-)COVID-19 world. From a tourism policy perspective, tracing these trajectories is one of the starting points for rethinking destination recovery and addressing sustainable goals.