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Based on the research activity within the ISLE International Sustainability Network, this paper represents a step forward aiming to find some contacts points in the experiences some international cases (USA, Brazil, Italy and France) have grown in the development of agritourism in mountain contexts. Despite the singular differences and the national specificities, agritourism is generally considered a particular form of social innovation in agriculture and rural development of mountainous areas, aiming at recomposing the natural and the human dimensions within the framework of a new sustainable way of doing agriculture. At the basis of the research is the hypothesis that agritourism operations are slowly and gradually shifting towards a new perspective/model. Some years ago, agritourism was traditionally viewed as a way for farmers to integrate or diversify their incomes. Nowadays instead—as the diversity of practice has grown and new values have emerged—the range of farmers’ motivations has become much broader. Some of these motivations include not only economic issues but also social, environmental and cultural ones, while addressing a more comprehensive idea of community-based and sustainable development. Case studies from South Carolina (USA), from Italian mountain regions, from Santa Catarina State in Brazil and from France are illustrated in which different innovation perspectives are highlighted.

Multi-case-study research conducted in some rural villages of Argentina and Italy is intended to propose a model of analysis and monitoring of the “collaborative processes” which stands behind the tourist enhancement of local assets. Based on the definition of “collective impact”, three main issues are analyzed: (1) the shortage of social capital, typical of some contemporary rural areas as a social problem; (2) the commitment of actors from different sectors to the common agenda of tourist development; (3) the structured form of coordination driven by extra-local organizations and programs, aimed at fostering sustainable tourism in rural villages. These issues are developed into key concepts used for the comparative description and analysis of the cases and for the definition of a common model of measurement and monitoring of the ongoing development processes. The main results are synthesized into a bidimensional plot, where the x-axis represents the “integration” dimension and the y-axis the “coordination”. Each village is then represented as a point of the Cartesian plan. The final idea is to use the model to monitor the processes within each different rural village and to measure the changes over time.

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This paper is aimed at investigating wine companies’ perceptions and attitudes towards the role of wine routes as an actual tool to improve their tourist attractiveness and sustainable tourism on a territorial level. Through a comparative approach, some wineries from the Italian regions of Abruzzo and Tuscany have been surveyed and in-depth-interviews to key local stakeholders have been conducted. The aim of the survey is to investigate the companies’ perception about wine tourists’ characteristics and wine route management. Through a multivariate analysis, the reasons behind wineries’ satisfaction/discontent have been analyzed. The findings identify a close relation between the complexity of the services offered, the companies’ involvement in the wine routes management and their satisfaction about the results obtained. The more complex the services are, the more satisfied the companies. The comparative analysis of the strengths and weaknesses pointed out by the wineries’ keepers has allowed some general considerations about the tools to use for the improvement of wine routes management. In a broader sense, the wineries’ direct involvement both in investment and in governance appears to be key in the success of the routes as a model for local tourism development.