The cultural heritage 'mosaic' is the main source for a company which manages an Albergo diffuso.
Some alberghi diffusi's use working methods typical of traditional hotels, and think that co-operation with external subjects is less important than relationship with workers or marketing. They look at co-operation as something which comes "afterwards". Doing so means forget about much of the economical potential that a cluster can create, or not giving much importance to guests' safety, or both.

Let's look at a clear example: a damaged pavement, which joins the houses used by the Albergo diffuso, causes the decrease of the houses themselves and the offer, with serious consequences to the possibility of selling the AD to target which have interest in this problem, as families with small children, old people, disabled people and so on.
Are we sure to consider marketing or management more important than co-operation and co-marketing?

The starting hypothesis is that an "horizontal" hotel (Dall'Ara) needs a "horizontal way of doing business", based on coordination, co-operation and strategic partnership.
Maurizio Droli's report supplements the current bibliography about matters such as:

• is co-operation a second best option for an AD's success, or is it indispensable?
• how must co-operation be to become useful?
• how can we increase co-operation's efficiency?
• others co-operate too: how can we analyze and improve our co-operation's efficiency compared to the others'?

The suggested method to increase co-operation's efficiency (cost/income ratio * time unit) opens new questions, the first one of which is the following:

• is it right to deal with co-operation's efficiency (in Albergo diffuso's but also in company's consortiums, districts, local tourism systems and PPP's in general) using non-numerical and non-managerial terms?
  
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