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This chapter delineates the conditions, challenges and opportunities for the sustainability of small entrepreneurial firms involved in local food tourism. It raises awareness on how these businesses can enhance their competitiveness in this market. It puts forward an analytical framework that is based on the economic, social, environmental and cultural sustainability of small local food tourism entrepreneurs in Swedish, Italian and Spanish contexts. This research implies that the financial sustainability of these small enterprises is contributing to local economic growth and employment in their country. From the social sustainability aspect these tourism businesses are intrinsically linked to local communities. Their responsible practices are meant to safeguard the environmental sustainability as well as the preservation of their local culture and heritage. At the same time, they enable them to add value to their destination’s cultural sustainability.

This chapter provides the results of the motivations and the profile of the creative tourist. Results originate from the major studies done worldwide, concerned with the different types of activities. This analysis is essential to design new products based on Creative Tourism and sustainability. Also, because at an international level, including South Europe, the profile of the creative tourist has not been characterised, especially the one that visits medium-sized cities and rural areas. This chapter intends to answer the following questions: Who is the participant in Creative Tourism activities? Is he/she mainly domestic or an international tourist? Why does this type of tourist participate in these creative experiences? What type of information sources do these tourists use to find the experiences in which he/she participates? This chapter uses primary and secondary data. The secondary data follow a content analysis approach of activities offered by Airbnb Experiences Platform. Regarding the primary data, 595 questionnaires applied in 45 creative experiences in the Northern region of mainland Portugal were analysed. The creative experiences were divided into seven categories: ‘creative festivals’, ‘nature and creativity’, ‘photography workshop’, ‘gastronomy experience’, ‘industrial experience’, ‘technology and creativity’ and ‘art and crafts’. The methods used were quantitative in nature. The questionnaire used consisted of 31 closed questions aimed at the profile and the motivations of the creative experience participants. Descriptive statistical analysis was used. The main results showed that participants in the seven categories of Creative Tourism experiences have relatively large differences in terms of demographic and socio-economic characteristics. These differences were also evident in their motivations for participating in Creative Tourism experiences.

Selling food tourism experiences can be a successful marketing tool that creates positive gastronomic memories. To determine how gastronomic memories are created, this study conducted interviews with participants using auto-driven photo-elicitation, the process of which explored trigger points with both tangible and intangible attributes. A focus group was also held where an avant-garde meal was served to “foodies” as a means of food-elicitation technique. This chapter examines the ways authenticity was presented in the narratives of the participants, and how authenticity played a role in their creation of participants’ memorable gastronomic experiences. The chapter questions if these “foodies” are taking away the mystique from dining-out by over analyzing the product.

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In developing country contexts, it has become difficult to imagine the word ‘conservation’ without ‘community’ sitting alongside it, as their combination is part of the international conservation and development lexicon. Community-based conservation (CBC) encompasses several core principles, including: involving communities in decision-making; devolving control over resource management; developing community institutions for management; incorporating traditional or local knowledge; legitimising community property rights; linking environment and development objectives and providing incentives for conservation (Barrow & Murphree, 2001; Kellert, Mehta, Ebbin, & Litchtenfeld, 2000; Songorwa, 1999; Western & Wright, 1994). All of these are employed with the aims of overcoming the limitations associated with traditional ‘top-down’ approaches to conservation (Adams & Hulme, 2001; Campbell, 2002a). Ideally, CBC should benefit both people and environments, contributing to both development and conservation. In this way CBC is directly aligned to wider discourses of sustainability and to innovations in the field of conserving natural resources.

We define diffusion as the spread of something within a social system. Diffusion is the most general and abstract term, and it embraces such processes as contagion, mimicry, social learning, organized dissemination, etc. (Strang & Soule, 1998). While the home territory of diffusion is innovation (see Rogers, 2003 for an authoritative review), more recent macro-diffusion research has developed, based on social movement and institutionalization arguments (Ansari, Fiss, & Zajac, 2010; Wejnert, 2002).

Occupational stress is common in the workplace and leads to various negative outcomes such as burnout, turnover, and medical problems. Although occupational stress is associated with negative connotations, it also can foster workplace resiliency. Workplace resiliency involves the ability to recover quickly in the face of adversity. Emotionally laborious jobs, or jobs in which employees must modify, manage, or regulate their emotions as part of their work role, are inherently stressful. Thus, such jobs, while stress-inducing, may also offer employees opportunities to become more resilient at work. Currently, display rules, rules encouraging the suppression and expression of certain emotions, dictate workplace emotions and thus, interactions. Ultimately, display rule adherence makes it difficult for employees engaging in emotional labor to build resilience. In this chapter, the authors detail how and when emotional labor encounters lead to episodic and prolonged workplace resilience. Specifically, the authors outline instances in which employees engaging in emotional labor can create and sustain workplace resiliency by not deploying an acting strategy and instead, breaking character. The authors further discuss individual and organizational factors that may impact this process as well such as personality and organizational culture that serve as potential boundary conditions to workplace resilience capacity. The authors conclude with implications for both researchers and practitioners.

Family events have unique significance on children as well as long-lasting impacts on them during their adulthood. A review of conceptual and theoretical literature on the subject was conducted to identify underlying trends and best practices in engaging children in the events industry. Societies are in transition from industrialised societies into risk societies and are increasingly becoming eco-socialised. Family events are integral towards developing inclusive and integrated societies and in realising Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG 16). Childhood is always eco-socialised, i.e. socially, economically and ecologically integrated with other forms of life. To the extent that childhood nostalgia forms the basis for future sustainable events and tourism choices. Family events are, therefore, increasingly becoming fundamental towards developing sustainability discourse. This viewpoint chapter provides conceptual and theoretical perspective on the roles and impacts of childhood research in sustainability discourse.