The co(a)st of beauty. From the construction of the tourist imaginary of attractiveness to increased exposure to risk

The chapter discusses the process of ‘beautification’ of the Italian coasts as part of the national branding process, where coasts occupy an important space in the tourist promotion of the Bel Paese. As a result, Italian coasts have experienced massive land use processes like resource exploitation, hyper-urbanisation, and hyper-touristification. Accordingly, the concept of “coastalisation” and the consequences of these processes in building vulnerability to disaster risks are described.