Abstract:
The main purpose of this research is to provide further evidences of the strong correlation between the development of the hospitality industry and the natural environment. In particular, this research emphases the fact that this unrestrained expansion of the touristic sector all over the main tourist destinations has been multiplying the negative effects on their natural environment, and consequently making them less attractive over the long run. Following this line of thought, the first chapter mainly aims at explaining why tourism is a phenomenon not to be underestimated, economically as well as environmentally speaking. Moreover, the second chapter tries to analyse the extent to which the touristic industry is aware of the fact that keeping growing at this pace is being highly unreliable and risky. Consequently, by introducing the concept of sustainable tourism, the main paths officially undertaken at the international level and the measures and tools to adopt for providing a more innovative and sustainable paradigm are described. In the third chapter, instead, the main focus is related to the concept of “green hotel” and the fact that it is larger hotel companies (including many hotel chains) that easily assume those characteristics typical of green hotels, on the contrary of small and medium hotel enterprises. For this reason, the situation in Italy is analysed by highlighting, on the one hand, how most hotels are “independently managed” and, on the other, how crucial it is to intervene with policies and strategies at local level, due to the typical fragmented Italian reality. In the fourth and final chapter, taking the tourism destination of Rimini as an object of study, the strategies, policies and initiatives implemented by the main strategic and relevant actors are identified in order to understand which are the major factors that can best support the ecological transition of small and medium-sized enterprises and develop a regenerative kind of tourism in line with the preservation of the environment.
