Guest editorial: Management, social responsibility and sustainability in tourism: issues and practices

Abstract

The idea of launching a call to create a special issue on the subjects of sustainability and social responsibility in tourism was born during a meeting with the thematic group “Tourism and Culture Management” of the Italian Management Society (SIMA) on the occasion of the conference of Rome La Sapienza organized by SIMA and Sinergie, Italian Journal of Management, on 20-21 June 2019.

The theme of the special issue was initially also inspired by the topics covered during that Conference, the title of which was “Management and sustainability: creating shared value in the digital era”. In reality, the theme of sustainability in tourism has long been common to scholars of tourism management and  fascinates us as curators of this special issue too. Indeed, we are aware that the problems of global pollution, climatic upheavals, population health and, more generally, all the challenges placed at the center of the 2030 agenda of the United Nations Organization (UN) are fundamental for orienting economic activities towards the paradigm of sustainability. A paradigm that suggests the managerial conduct of companies aimed at respecting the three dimensions of sustainability, that  are the environmental, social and economic sustainability and at pursuing therefore strategies of corporate social responsibility. In tourism, the issue of sustainability is sometimes considered an oxymoron, as it is inevitable that the movement of enormous flows of people from their places of residence to tourist destinations will not always have positive impacts on the environment, on the social communities and on the creation of economic value for the players  of the sector. … to be continued