valentina ndou

Among major international research and practice issues, the issue of the circular economy has emerged recently as “an alternative economic paradigm” to address the current needs of the present and to search for innovative solutions for the future. The objective of this paper is to explore the initiatives and practices of the circular economy that could be actuated by tourism firms with the aim of understanding the value that could be created and its contribution to sustainable development based on decarbonization, energy efficiency, and the use of renewable sources. To achieve this objective, an in-depth, qualitative case study of a tourism resort is presented and analyzed to identify the key CE practices activated, with the aim of creating greater value and contributing to sustainable production and consumption. The results show that the main CE practices implemented focus primarily on enhancing resource efficiency, reducing emissions, and minimizing environmental impacts. This research also emphasizes the benefits that the CE provides in terms of economic, environmental, and social efficiency. The study enriches the relevance of CE and the sustainability approach for the tourism sector by highlighting the main value opportunities that tourism firms could grasp from the application of CE. Also, the paper contributes to providing practical suggestions regarding possible initiatives and practices that tourism managers could adopt for deploying CE practices.

This paper presents a methodological framework aiming to support the creation of a smart-tourism destination. Specifically, the study is realised in the frame of NEST, a European Union Interreg project aiming to create a smart-tourism destination in the Adriatic–Ionian area. Therefore, the study focuses on the southeastern Adriatic–Ionian area, as a portion of the European macro-region including the Italian regions of Molise and Apulia and the Balkan countries of Albania and Montenegro. This area presents a clear vocation for tourism, with a distinctive cultural heritage, attractive natural landscapes, and old culinary traditions offering a variety of eno-gastronomic and folk craft products. In the frame of the EU neighbour policies and in coherence with the objectives of the EU smart specialization strategy, several initiatives have been promoted for innovating the tourism offering in this area. Despite this, the full achievement of the creation of an Adriatic–Ionian smart destination calls for the adoption of a multidimensional strategy able to leverage knowledge-intensive dynamics of collaboration. This paper, therefore, aims to highlight the opportunities of adoptions and implications of this methodological framework for the cross-border marketing and management of the Adriatic–Ionian smart destination.