Sustainability and tourism development in three Italian destinations: Stakeholders' opinions and behaviours

The paper focuses on tourism sustainability and environmental policies. It presents thefindings of an empirical research study on environmental awareness in three Italianareas. The aim of the research was to study local stakeholders' environmentalawareness so as to verify their willingness to support environmental needs.Institutional stakeholders and local tourism entrepreneurs were interviewed at eachsite. The areas have been analysed as case studies in order to evaluate the localcommunities' commitment towards protecting the environment. In addition, theopinions of different stakeholders within each site and across sites have beencompared. This work also underlines the importance of endogenous processes of asocio-cultural type, such as primary drivers of innovative eco-compatiblebehaviours, compared with the role played by market-driven external forces ortraditional government regulation. The findings demonstrate that, in lacking sharedresponsibility, conflicts and tensions inside the local community paralyse innovativeenvironmental behaviours when they ought really to be turned into opportunities fordebate so that shared strategies and solutions may be identified.