Urban, cultural, and critical journey on mass tourism and the boundaries of the historic city
Bari – ITALY-Sunday, February 22, 2026, 9:30 AM
ROCK as stone and as resistance: the old Centre of Bari, built of rock, fossils and ancient walls, becomes a metaphor for what remains stable while mass tourism erodes its balance.
Between 2025 and early 2026, the city of Bari experienced an unprecedented increase in tourist flows, exceeding 2.6 million annual overnight stays, a growth of over 25% in a single year.
While this phenomenon demonstrates the city’s attractiveness, it has also generated social, spatial, and cultural tensions, particularly evident in the historic neighborhoods and, most notably, in the ancient town of Bari Vecchia.
The historic center has gradually transformed into a “tourist-friendly” space, where rapid, consumerist enjoyment—including typical cuisine, folklore, and simplified images of local identity—risks overlapping and sometimes obscuring the complex value of the city’s historical, urban, and social assets.
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