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In recent decades, Divjake region, on the Albania Mediterranean coast, has been subject to an increasing demand for local economic development. Different transformation perspectives and contrasting tourism development strategies are competing on this fragile but dynamic region. The cooperation program Urban Lab, recently undertaken, aims at the provision of a realistic and innovative strategy as an alternative to mainstream programs of mass-tourism seaside development, which are largely dependent on international investments. As a general objective, Urban Lab, promotes environment protection and tourism development on the coast and in the lagoon area. A range of actions triggers innovation in socioeconomic development through a participative planning process while reinforcing local resources. In this perspective, an urban laboratory with the active involvement of young people, civil society and institutions is foreseen. The innovative approach entails the association between a territorial project, reframing local landscape, and an educational program addressed to local residents. The research program, thus, positions itself at an intermediate level between the reception of society needs or expectations and the reconstruction of a legitimate and participated planning practice., Ri-Vista, Vol 15 No 2 (2017)

During the last decades marginal rural territories of Europe lost a great part of their productive character, acquiring nowadays new functions, roles and social meanings which, in turn, are leading to their perception as consumption places. Among the new roles and functions, environmental protection, nature conservation, tourism and leisure activities seem to be the most significant. Tourism, in particular, has an increasing role in the production of a certain image of rurality, through the use of powerful specific (although global) symbols such as green landscapes, authenticity and typicality, contributing to the reinvention of remote rural areas. Based on a preliminary content analysis of promotional materials from Italian rural tourism units, this paper aims to discuss the way rural areas and rurality are presented and sold to tourists and to debate some implications for local development. Empirical evidence suggests a lack of correspondence between the real rural and the promoted rurality.