Turismo e desenvolvimento sustentável. Uma avaliação exploratória das práticas hoteleiras no concelho de Bragança, Portugal

Abstract

Sustainable tourism is one of the concerns of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which, although not recent, is gaining more strength and space in the discourses and policies about tourism. Thus the principles of sustainability have been incorporated into the behavior and procedures of the agents involved in the activity in order to mitigate the negative effects. The hotel sector, an active part in this process, is increasingly demanding a conscientious attitude, as well as the adoption of measures and standards of conduct that seek to reduce its socio-environmental impacts. This work proposes to evaluate sustainability practices in the environmental, economic and social dimensions, as well as their degree of applicability, by the hotel sector in the municipality of Bragança, northeast of Trás-os-Montes, from the data collected through a questionnaire survey to managers of all tourist accommodation units. An exploratory and descriptive statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS statistical analysis program. The results revealed a moderate level of hotel sustainability, suggesting that the adoption of sustainable practices is still incipient and that much still remains to be done for the hotels in Bragança to contribute effectively to sustainable tourism. Although this work is restricted to a small territory it opens a window of opportunity to replicate this methodology, in other territories or even at national level, including a larger number of units as well as more specific and adapted indicators.