City, tourism, and food. The Italian Street Food experience as a connecting resource and local identity

The current competitive environment, dominated by complexity and dynamism, sees territories and, cities, competing to attract capital, residents, businesses, and tourists. This competition is developed through strategies and policies aimed at highlighting local peculiarities to become more attractive. In an era marked by globalization, there is a growing appreciation of local identities and productive traditions. These elements are considered distinctive, as they shape and enrich the tourism offerings of different places. Food, understood as a social and cultural phenomenon, takes on an important evocative role of the territory of origin. In countries such as Italy, associated in the collective imagination not only with art and culture but also with good and healthy food, where the wine and gastronomic offer is extremely varied and widespread, food becomes a strong element of tourist appeal. Food and wine tourism, which is growing steadily according to UNWTO data, attracts postmodern, slow, and green tourists who are interested in local specialties and want to connect with the local area. Hence one aspect of particular interest is street food, a global phenomenon that involves about 2.5 billion people every day. In Italy, this ancient gastronomic practice finds great acceptation, especially in cities, and becomes an experience through which tourists interact with terroir values. In an innovative context, where personalization and sustainability are drivers for the development and growth of the restaurant industry, street food, if made with local and sustainable ingredients, could help strengthen the competitiveness of the urban-rural system and create ‘new’ itineraries for responsible tourists.