The term „Albergo Diffuso“ (AD) describes the concept using rooms in aban-doned houses, which are located in villages that are suffering from rural mi-gration, as a scattered hotel. Therefore the hotels feature a horizontal instead of the classical vertical structure. Nowadays there are 62 AD in Italy, which are organized in an umbrella organization („Associazione Nazionale Albergo Diffuso“). The association imposes criteria, which have to be fulfilled by an AD; in practice, the given criteria leave a huge room for maneuvers, for which reason the structure of the AD varies significantly. Beginning with the es-tablishment (corporate-based vs. community-based tourism) it is followed by the number of rooms and finally finishes by the facilities (down-to-earth vs.
luxury).
To estimate the sustainable development of the different approaches, five AD were visited and qualitative interviews with strong narrative character were conducted. Internal as well as external stakeholders were questioned to gain an objective overview. The interviews were analyzed with the evalua-tion software GABEK, which enables the visualizaevalua-tion of underlying feelings, values, attitudes, and their mutual relations in social fabrics.
Despite the differences in their properties, all visited AD contribute to a revival of the rural areas: shops, bars and restaurants are opened and most of the AD focus on regional value chains, whereby the agriculture and handcraft has been strengthen. The emigration stops and even young families move to the villages, because of the job opportunities. The linking between the inhab-itants of the villages and the projects differs from case to case; community-based-projects appear to find more supporters. The concept of the AD could be a thoughtprovoking impulse for rural areas outside of Italy as well.
Keywords: Albergo Diffuso, rural depopulation, rural tourism, sustainable tourism, GABEK
INTRODUC TION
Albergo Diffuso (AD) is a common Italian tourism model, which goal it is to revive villages, suffering from depopulation and to keep young people in the villages. The individual rooms are located in different houses, which were previously empty, scattered around the village and a common area with a reception desk and restaurant. Thus the AD tries to combine two features (IDEASS, 2011): On one hand, the guests will feel like in a hotel, offering a wide range of amenities, easy booking and professional services. On the other hand, guests will also feel at home, in particular through contact with local people and the connection to the region. The authenticity plays a huge role as well.
In recent years, the AD got a lot of media attention. Newspapers and maga-zines from around the world reported on the AD and praised their sustain-ability. This paper will discuss the question how sustainable the concept of AD is in practice. To start, specific criteria have been detected from the theory for determining sustainability. These criteria were later compared with the results of the empirical survey. For this purpose, five AD were visited where qualitative interviews were conducted. These were analyzed using the evalu-ation software GABEK® and compared according to the criteria of the theory.
LITER ATURE REVIEW
So far there is no scientifically research about AD in English. Information is only available through the umbrella association “Associazione Nazionale Alberghi Diffusi” and from newspaper articles. From the umbrella organiza-tion, a list of criteria has been created, which has to be met by an AD in order to become a member (ADI, 2012). These criteria were, however, chosen softly, so that many villages/hotels can participate in the organization. Thereby, a large difference between various AD derives, which let the research question of how sustainable the concept of AD is in practice, appear more interesting;
it can be shown how a concept should be implemented,that it is created as sustainable as possible. To find appropriate indicators for measuring sustain-ability, a systematic literature review was done. Seven articles were identified from the last ten years, which deal with indicators of sustainable tourism development. These contributions are the following:
AUTHOR YEAR TITLE JOURNAL
Blackstock et al. 2008 Measuring Responsibility: An Appraisal of a Scottish National Park’s Sustainable Tourism Indicators
Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2008
AUTHOR YEAR TITLE JOURNAL
Lim & Cooper 2009 Beyond Sustainability: Optimising Island Tourism Development
International Journal of Tourism Research Park & Yoon 2011 Developing Sustainable Rural Tourism
Evaluation Indicators
International Journal of Tourism Research Roberts & Tribe 2008 Sustainability Indicators for Small TOurism
Enterprises - An Exploratory Perspective
Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Vol. 16, No. 5.
Schianetz et al. 2007 Concepts and Tools for Comprehensive Sustainability Assessments for Tourism Destinations: A Comparative Review
2008 Sustainability Indicators for Tourism Destinations: A Complex Adaptive Systems Approach Using Systemic Indicator Systems
Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Vol. 16, No. 6
Weiler & Smith 2009 Does more interpretation lead to greater outcomes? An assessment of the impacts of multiple layers of interpretation in a zoo context
Journal of Sustainble Tourism, Vol. 17, No.1
TABLE 1. Findings literature research. Own illustration.
From the content of information of those, adequate indicators were selected which are suitable to demonstrate a sustainable development in the AD. These were allocated to the three dimensions of sustainability – economic, social and environmental. The result is given in the following figure:
TABLE 2. Indicators sustainable tourism development. Own illustration.
Using these indicators, the development of tourism in the villages was ana-lyzed.