Strategic Assessment of the Sacra di San Michele: Supporting the Development of a Management Plan

The World Heritage List is a well-known resource to preserve natural and cultural heritage. Inscribing a monument in the WHL can help guarantee the preservation of a site and foment local tourism. The Sacra di San Michele has been on the path to being inscribed since 2016, when it became a part of the national tentative list. The next step requires the elaboration of a management plan for the area. The purpose of the thesis is to support the development of the management plan by investigating both the Sacra and its surroundings. Developing a strategic assessment of the area was necessary using the SWOT and Stakeholder analysis methodologies. These tools are allied to geographic information systems (GIS) and circle methodology to view the territory and its possible stakeholders comprehensively. The evaluation considers a series of criteria (social, technological, environmental, economic, and political) to determine the current state of the site and the possibilities of its development. These categories are represented in four thematic maps using GIS to help define guidelines for any future project. The economic evaluation was done to identify, rank, and describe the actors and their roles in the project.