The environmental certification of tourism: A tool to enhance the unicity of a territory

It is widely recognized that tourism and environment are characterized by a multimodal relationship. This means that a damaged environment has no touristic value; at the same time, excessive touristic flows have a negative impact on environment and ecosystem. These considerations show that touristic activities, more than others, need to couple economic development and environmental safeguarding and, as consequence, they need to be converted in a more ecological way. The new concept of “quality” for tourism includes both environment and ethic management as the new basic pillars to ensure competition. Although latent, the “environmental” demand for tourism is considered by tourists as an aspect of the service which is inseparable from its overall quality. At the same time, a competitive tourism service cannot be untied by environmental performances which determine an high level of quality. It becomes necessary to efficiently communicate this new orientation so that it becomes a strategic variable. Taking into account these considerations, the aim of this paper is to analyse the tools that can enable operators and companies of tourism sector to improve their capability to manage environmental issues and to guarantee the eco-quality of their services. At the same time, the present paper intends to verify whether the voluntary environmental label EU-Ecolabel has achieved the pre-fixed results both from environmental and economic point of view.