Lifestyle for Rent

This well-meaning real-estate writer from CosmoBC.com was vaunting the high-end investment potential of Cortina d’Ampezzo, a skiing destination for the world’s rich and superrich, now one of the most expensive real estate markets in Italy. But what that euphemistic phrase, “few ‘typical’ residences”, refers, in fact, is an absence of local citizens. The uber-gentrification of Cortina by wealthy lifestyle migrants in search of quality of life has virtually wiped out its local community; one by one, the Cortinesi have sold their homes to take advantage of the astronomical property values granted them by the influx of new cash. “This is a short-term perspective, a myopia,” says tourism researcher Serena Volo, Assistant Professor of Marketing at unibz’s School of Economics and Management (and a member of unibz’s TOMTE, Competence Centre in Tourism Management and Tourism Economics). “Because of what happened over the last 40 years, during the low season Cortina is now a town of closed shutters, with no flowers on the balconies, and no locals walking around the streets.”

Shifting Tourism

Cortina is but one example of the impact of second homes. Second home ownership today is often at the cross-roads of tourism and lifestyle migration, between those who travel for a fleeting cultural experience and those who want to soak up a locale on a semi-permanent basis. And it has become an enormously contemporary and far-reaching social-cultural phenomenon that is the result of significant changes in travel and tourism. The world’s globalised economic system, declining transportation costs and modern communications have converged to transform the way we perceive space and time; live, work or play, we do it now through the prism of mobility in which tourism, migration and lifestyle migration are converging before our eyes. “For instance,” says Volo, “a lot of wealthy foreign families nowadays are buying second homes in Chelsea or Kensington (London) to ensure themselves and their kids access to a metropolitan area with all its benefits. The nature of this form of tourism is transforming.”

Welcome to South Tyrol... Not

But in South Tyrol things are different. Displacement of the kind that Cortina has seen could not become an issue here: there are just too many regulations, the foremost of which are limits on the number of South Tyrolean homes that can be designated as second homes. All the same, seventy-five per cent of those second homes in South Tyrol are owned by a mixture of Italians, Austrians and Germans from outside of South Tyrol. And that’s a socio-cultural stress factor. In 2011, Volo carried out a study on how South Tyroleans perceive second home owners who come to visit for short periods of time during the year. The opinion was not homogeneous, but issues of invasion of territory were clear. “The stress I believe is related to the social fabric of the province,” says Volo. “The socio-cultural history of South Tyrol is peculiar. South Tyroleans are welcoming, but they can also be kind of possessive about their territory and the way it’s treated. It’s about respect of their land and traditions, and second home owners— who choose South Tyrol as vacation residence—appreciate this.”

Host Today, Guest Tomorrow

Nonetheless, despite the media reports that dramatise conflicts with lifestyle tourists (such as in Cortina or more recently in Dobbiaco), there are positive aspects to second home ownership that should not go unnoticed, says Volo. “Second home owners can also wish to adapt and integrate into their societies, and become important actors in their communities.” So for Volo, wherever you are in the world, tourists and residents need to start shifting their thinking towards longer-term perspectives. “If we really looked at our changing lifestyle and our mobile lives, then we would see that in the long-term we all are going to be a kind of trait-de-union between places and cultures. People should contribute equally to the welfare and the quality of life of the places they spend time in.”