Sustainable Tourism Law

GOVERNANCE FOR A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN TOURISM 741 opinions and perceptions of residents, institutional agents and social actors in relation to the changes in its quality of life. Literature review regarding the governance for sustainable tourism shows it is necessary to adopt sustainability principles, involve local communities and actors, as they are essential for the success of the implementation of methodological policies and management systems and, consequently, to reduce the adverse effects and maximize benefits. It was also confirmed that the generation of resources is an approach to sustainable tourism that corroborates this position, as it mentions that it is necessary to reach an adequate vertical and horizontal integration level, with the purpose of optimizing the use of resources. Since individual and/or isolated interventions may be ineffective or counterproductive, integrated actions should be favoured, because they are the ones which allow sustainable development of touristic destinations and assure a better positioning of destination in relation to (i) assuring a better positioning of destinations in relation to competitors; (ii) guaranteeing opportunities to local companies; and (iii) fomenting interconnections among different sectors of activities. III. SUSTAINABILITY FOR TOURISM ACTIVITY In order to make the concept of sustainability ready to operate in activities related to tourism, we propose the adoption of a structure that, following the principles, indicates a series of guidelines based on sustainability dimensions (environmental, social, cultural, economic, political and institutional) that are specially applied to the main activities of tourism (transport, lodging, food, recreation, leisure and entertainment in the use of attractions). The sustainability concept we are proposing involves understanding a series of sustainability dimensions and places, whose views as a whole allow the rational development of the activity in order to make it effectively sustainable. Such dimensions can be divided in two categories: objective dimensions and instrumental dimensions. Through an activity perspective focusing on its main goals, as well as the cultural, ecological, social and economic benefits, it is possible to bring the objective dimensions to municipalities where the initiative is being developed, which are: * environmental (ecological) sustainability; * social sustainability; * economic sustainability;