Towards Tourism Sustainability: General Aspects and Empirical Evidence of the Italian Experience at Decentralized Level, with Specific Reference to Sicily

Even though the concepts and observations underlying sustainability are not a novelty, sustainable development was given impetus and made popular in 1987 by the Brundtland Report. This report introduced development policies and strategies that acknowledged the importance of resource and environmental constraints and the limitations imposed on growth patterns. Although sustainable development proved difficult to define and make operative, the concept was progressively applied to those economic sectors which had major detrimental effects on income, employment and wealth. Sustainable tourism was effectively one part of the effort to take full account of the current and future economic, social and environmental impacts of the sector, addressing the needs of visitors, industry, environment and host communities. After reviewing the main questions referring to the environmental, economic and social aspects of tourism development, this paper tries to identify a balanced indicator showing the impact of tourist accommodation facilities and related infrastructure in Sicily in terms of the three fundamental pillars of sustainability. Based on this indicator, the ranking of the nine Sicilian provinces is provided. In a wider perspective, the proposed approach is applied to make a comparison of tourism sustainability in Sicily and in other Italian regions.