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The present study investigates residents' perception of tourism as a sustainable development driver and explores the reasons why residents recognize their own place of residence as an attractive tourism destination. The work considers one of Italy's most visited tourist destinations (Puglia) and uses quantitative (i.e., inferential and text mining) and qualitative (i.e., survey) approaches. Main results reveal that socioeconomic and environmental factors positively affect residents' perception of tourism as a driver of sustainable development. Furthermore, the spatial dimensions of the territories of Puglia, perceived by indigenous local knowledge, are key elements for tourist attractiveness of its destinations.

This study investigates the residents' attitudes to tourism as a driver of regional development and the impact of digital technologies on these perceptions. This work considers a 'lagging behind' region of the EU and employs a generalised ordered logit regression. The main findings suggest that the positive attitude is affected by the digital technology use, education, non-job variables and touristic products such as landscape, food and wine and events. As a result, the digital technology and the enhancement of touristic products may serve as important factors for 'lagging behind' regions to meet a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.