Communicating and promoting sustainability in tourism: an analysis of the official websites of the Italian regions

This paper analyses the orientation towards sustainability in the online communication of the Italian regions, by evaluating – between December 2019 and January 2020 – the content of official tourism websites and assessing whether this orientation is associated with specific destination characteristics. Sustainability orientation is measured using the Green D-web, a checklist of 35 items of sustainability-oriented content. Destination profiling is assessed through the adoption of sustainable regulations and practices, the intensity of tourism development, and its size and maturity. Green D-web scores between 5 and 32 (out of a maximum of 35) are found with a median value of 19.5. Sustainability orientation is significantly and directly associated with both adoptions of sustainable regulations and practices and intensity of tourism development, while relationships with size and maturity are not significant.