A realist evaluation on SMEs in sustainable tourism: how can the socialization of learning re-shape

Tourism is responsible for 8% of global carbon emissions, it is one of the fastest growing sectors worldwide and it is forecasted to grow by 4% annually. In 2013 the European Commission launched the European Tourism Indicator System for sustainable destination management (ETIS), which forms part of the Europe 2020 Strategy, however only recently have a number of cities introduced sustainability indicators as a tool to evaluate their performance and to inform policy-making. Even so, local bodies or institutions have not meticulously assessed nor shared the results of such actions. Given the limited studies on actual evaluation of projects that have been carried out in tourism small and medium 4 / 15 enterprises (SMEs), this research will make a valuable contribution to knowledge.

The case study chosen for this research is the province of Barcelona, where the supra-local government, Diputació de Barcelona (DIBA), recently introduced a "Sustainability Commitment" programme which involves about 500 small tourism firms grouped in 11 clusters based on their geographical location. The overall objective of this study is to investigate local SMEs' engagement with sustainability practices from the point of view of organisational learning and behaviour change as a result of government interventions.