Intersectoral local development in Italy: the cultural, creative and tourism industries

This paper contributes to the theoretical and political debate on the value generation and innovation potential of culture and creativity and bridges the knowledge domains of local development and managerial studies. It investigates the role of intersectoriality within the cultural, creative and tourism industries in Italian local development. The research design builds on the literature on culture-led development and adapts the established body of empirical research on industrial districts to tourism and cultural development. The quantitative analysis of intersectoral specialization and the clustering of cultural, creative, and tourism industries in Italian local labour systems (LLSs) combines specialization indexes with principal component analysis and cluster analysis. Novel statistical evidence on intersectoral specialization and the clustering of the cultural, creative, and tourism sectors in Italy at the inter-municipal level is provided. This study helps to identify an Italian model of the economy of culture and tourism.