Small tourism providers' stories about sustainability

Abstract

This study asks how small tourism providers use stories to make sense of their world in terms of sustainability. It elaborates on sense-making and story concepts and their relevance to sustainability; adopts an enactive research approach and multiple methods (participation, journaling, interviews, document analysis, content analysis); and explores five providers’ stories about themselves, the destination, and their story for tourists. The main findings reveals that the providers make sense of their world by seeing themselves as characters in a multi-themed story in which they are fallible change agents, understanding and practising sustainability differently, whereas the government is responsible for implementing radical change. This study’s novelty lies in the narrative inquiry that allows a comprehensive, nuanced understanding of tourism providers’ worldviews.