Enhancing digital access to local cultural heritage through e-governance: innovations in theory and practice from Genoa, Italy

e-Governance is an emerging platform for improving digital access to cultural heritage. For residents, tourists, service providers and other users, e-governance can facilitate inclusion in destination promotion through user-relevant e-services. However, practice has yet to meet the challenge existing theory poses: traditional top-down approaches to decision-making and e-service development in urban cultural tourism are failing to adopt ICT-enabled participatory approaches. This paper addresses this gap by presenting an innovative e-governance model for the city of Genoa, Italy, which enables a user-relevant web-based promotion of local cultural heritage through inclusive management and participative e-services. A novel bottom-up methodological approach is applied, combining action research with focus group activities involving multiple stakeholders. The outcome is increased digital access as a function of user inclusion and integrated e-services, available at all times, anywhere, and is made available by both providers and users.