Recreation tourist areas. An exam on Recreational Business Districts in Olbia (Sardinia)

Research concerned about cities paid a particular attention, particularly in the past, related to the central places of a city, or the areas where central activities characterizing cities are located. That led to the definition of the so called Central Business District - also known as “Downtown” or “the City”. Some related concepts have been also developed for addressing tourism and recreation. That led to defining the Recreational Business District, a – not necessarily geographically – central part of a city generally hosting free time and leisure, lived by locals, visitors and tourists. Here a research is carried on, in order to evaluate the ways in which recreational areas tend to distribute and concentrate on urban environments. The analysis is carried on considering the municipality of Olbia in Sardinia (Italy). The idea is that of comparing the spatial distribution and extent of such Recreational areas in parts of a territory quite different in shapes, population and, in general geographical characters. The analysis was also performed over recreational activities considering their level of connectedness by means of social networks ad media, examining the pattern they draw in a tourist area. Different techniques are used, including a point pattern analysis based on Kernel Density Estimation.