Assessing Sustainability Destinations' Strategies: Paths and Maturity Profiles

Sustainability is clearly recognized as a fundamental element for destinations’ competitiveness. At international level - no matter the tourism vocation, life cycle phase, location - destinations have implemented sustainable strategies achieving different results. However, there is still few evidences about key factors for an effective strategy. The literature has demonstrated that implementing sustainability requires collective actions and the involvement of multiple stakeholders belonging to different sectors. Nevertheless, the features of these development paths are not clearly investigated. This study, using a mixed-methods approach, addresses the above open issues through a three-phase analysis focused on the 12 Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) of the Trentino Region (Italian alpine area), a sensitive ecosystem where ecological impacts are receiving greater attention by the academic community and international bodies (Agenda 21). In study 1, through a cluster analysis we define the physical-socio-economic profile of the 12 territories. In study 2, we apply the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) framework to assess the maturity destinations’ sustainable development along 4 dimensions: managerial, socio-economic, cultural and environmental. Finally, in study 3, by means of in-depth interviews to DMOs general managers we identify destinations paths towards a sustainable development. Our findings confirm the pivotal role played by DMOs in fostering coordination mechanisms among multiple key stakeholders (companies, public bodies, local community, guests) belonging to different sectors (mobility, accommodation, facilities, protected areas), notwithstanding the actions implemented go far beyond the perimeter of tourism. This paper contributes to the academic debate by: i) identifying different paths in terms of genesis and evolution of sustainability (initiator, scope, level of involvement of key stakeholders), and ii) proposing three maturity levels in implementing sustainable development. Future research could explore the generalizability of our results to different geographical contexts or tourism sectors.