Entrepreneurs' Experiences, Motivations and Sustainability of Tourism

The growing importance of tourism in world economy has driven some authors to consider tourism as a complex system that as to be managed as a whole, in order to address all of its different aspects. The traditional definition of tourism, as provided by the World Tourism Organization (WTO), is no more apt to fully describe tourism emphasizing only the role of tourists and their perception of travel as an opportunity to relax and escape from daily life (Rossi, 2008; Della Corte, 2009; Casarin, 1996). This definition does not take into account the important impacts that touristic phenomena have on local economy, environment and the urban structure of a territory, it does not address the social side of travel as a bridge between different cultures able to ease knowledge transfer processes at several different levels at once (Gullotta, 1997). When tourist phenomenon becomes a "mass phenomenon" (Butler, 1980), in addition, the overall effects of these different "development" trajectories may end in a scale-up of conflicts till reaching the situation described by Doxey (1976) as "antiturismo", ie when Tourists are no longer a resource, but as a force destructive of resources. Hence, the need to integrate the dynamics of tourism with other dynamics in the local area, but abroad too, and to consider environmental, social responsibility (respect for the environment and local cultures) and sustainability in tourism - tourism become a form of participatory development based on integrated management of resources in order that all the economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and quality of life (WTO, 1988) . In this configuration, our work aims to analyze the different motivations that have led operators to change their vision of "tourism" in order to understand whether previous experiences of a tour operator can influence not only his vision on the tourism as a system but also the ways in which we see the sustainability of tourism in a given area. Today, sustainability in tourism is presented with several sides: on the one side there are those initiatives of sustainable tourism by social entrepreneurs that want to help processes of economic and social development in a given area without compromising its local culture and its environmental resources, on the other side there are those initiatives for sustainable tourism driven by traditional tour operators. The first class of initiatives, often taking place in Southern World Countries, where an essential part of the planet's environmental is often coupled to economic and social distress; these initiatives allow tourism to act both as an instrument of peace and social justice, and as an effective tool for economic development. The second is embodied in those initiatives, often taking place in the last few years, spurred out of the growing attention to environmental issues leading an ever larger slice of population to pay more attention to the environment, and have prompted authorities to put forward new regulations creating thus a discontinuity that may result in the generation of sustainable competitive advantage. This paper shows the first stages of an empirical analysis designed to investigate whether there are significant differences in the way of acting, planning and promoting activities by tour operators depending on whether they are a social enterprise or a traditional one and how these differences occur.