A Sustainable Behaviour Able to Combine the “Strong” with the “Weak”

When you talk about sustainable tourism you mean, first of all, respecting the ecosystem of the territory you visit, but – at the same time – this attention should be brought even to local culture. Tourism should not influence negatively in any way the welfare of populations with which it gets in contact. This view, basically humanistic, refers to an essential concept in the field of sustainability that is “responsibility”. A tourism which is ethical is particularly oriented towards the protection of the Third World and developing countries, too, where often a great heritage of beauties – which can be natural or manufactured by men throughout centuries – concentrates. My reflection is trying to create a general perspective, but it has not been completely realized yet: in fact, I firstly would make an example to which your attention should be brought. If I think of my experience as a manager, I can find many cases that, in theory, have approached the sustainable tourism. Sustainability of the enterprise consists, as you can see, in applying to the management those same values which characterize, for instance, the management of the holiday of a sustainable tourist. Management and tourism are, in fact, similar for etymology, and derive from the Latin expression gestus: they are gestures, actions which have consequences to environment and people. In fact, the behaviour of an enterprise should be the one of a wise tourist: in this way, the enterprise, that in this situation plays the role of the Western tourist that is “strong” towards the “weak” populations he visits, is “stronger” than its territory and, for this reason, its behaviour should be responsible, attentive and respectful of the environment surrounding the community which is itself a part of it. If you act in a sustainable way – and at this point the perspective becomes more than ever general – you operate in a virtuous way because you create a relationship between strong and weak which inevitably generates an equilibrium in Cicero style which influences positively the welfare of everyone. Sustainability applied to different cultural fields in which man (“the strong” one) acts with effects to the environment (the “weak” one) can really create that relationship among parts that generates positivity, welfare and balance. This is not a utopia, but a goal which everyone can reach. This is the “sense” that we – the ones of “Il Senso Ritrovato” – would like to spread to the benefit of everyone.