Based on the assumptions of the 1960's, the attention paid to the ways in their geographical materiality was not accompanied by sufficient research effort in order to locate them better in history and mentalities and to understand their significance for the people who traversed them.

With the assistance of experts, the Institute wishes to restart European multidisciplinary research in order to make the cultural routes of the Council of Europe benefit more from the richness of experience in each country.

Immaterial heritage and development

As an example, for the Via Francigena in Italy the most frequent subject is the study of the ways themselves and of the monuments that mark it out. The old routes taken by the pilgrims in the Middle Ages are often regarded as the principal witness to the historical route: whether they were later covered by a national road, forgotten in the middle of a forest, or whether the bridges crossing the rivers were demolished, the vanished or forgotten roads are a paramount object of research. It is generally the monuments related to these roads (churches, hospices, abbeys, fortifications, works of art, etc.) that allow for the finding of the trace. This research constitutes the specificity of a historical cultural route, because, unlike a cultural route based on themes born out of imagination, the historical route is materialised geographically by a network of more or less nowadays identifiable roads. Other researchers give more importance to the immaterial dimension: everyday life of the pilgrims, the specific liturgy of this pilgrimage, "chansons de geste", economic exchanges on these roads. This kind of research is not yet much undertaken by Italian researchers. Nevertheless, Paolo Caucci von Saucken directed a work devoted to the immaterial heritage of Via Francigena, and thus opened new prospects.

If one generally recognises in cultural activities a real impact on regional planning, the latter takes another dimension if integrated within a cultural route. Indeed, the continuity one finds in a route makes it possible to consider regional planning from another angle. Rather than support cultural activities independent from each other, the local communities concerned with the routes have the means of implementing a coherent cultural development on the territory. It is a question of attracting tourist flow to the territory. But it should also be noted that it is sometimes difficult to encourage the public to leave a site that exerts great attraction (as is the case of Sienna, for example).

Conversely, a less frequented centre can found its tourist promotion on the route that crosses it: the tourist product thus offered is more complete, more attractive (it is the position of Parma). This also concerns the revitalisation of zones in difficulty. This step is very often used, in particular by the Province of Parma, the region of the Aosta Valley, which benefited from European financing to develop cultural amenities along Via Francigena.