Sustainable tourism as a factor of local development

This book presents the results of the conference “Sustainable tourism as a factor of local development”, organized by GRISS, Research Unit on Sustainable Development of the Department of Environmental Science in University of Milano Bicocca. The book contains an interdisciplinary overview of the main topics related to tourism sustainability, where special attention is paid to its role for local development, and a review about the most relevant policies and trends in European Union and worldwide. It gathers the scientific papers presentedduring the conference and the results of the roundtable about the upcoming event of Expo 2015 and its possible effects on the city of Milan and the Monza and Brianza province. This contribution combines the different perspectives of the participants that have been meeting during the two days of the congress (both from the scientific side and from the operational point of view), such as representatives of numerous faculties (environmental science, economy, sociology, engineering and architecture) from Italy and abroad and local representatives of institutions, NGOs and tourism businesses. A specific final section is dedicated to a pilot application of the European Charter of Sustainable Tourism in protected areas, a promising methodology to integrate environmental, social and economic sustainability into tourism policies at local scale.