Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano Faculty of Economics Sustainable Tourism Development in Alpine Areas: A Case Study of the Valley of Blenio (Switzerland) Master of Arts in Economics and Communication, Major in International Tourism Master Thesis Author: Germanova Mariya Atanasova Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Luthe Tobias Academic year: 2017-2018 Submission date: 03.09.2018 I II Table of Contents Acknowledgement ................................................................................................................................ IV Figures and tables ................................................................................................................................... V Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... VII Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Literature review ................................................................................................................3 1.1 Sustainable tourism development .......................................................................................................3 1.2 Stakeholder theory ..............................................................................................................................4 1.3 Network governance...........................................................................................................................6 Chapter 2: Methodology ........................................................................................................................9 2.1 Research aims ....................................................................................................................................9 2.2 Methods of data collection .................................................................................................................9 2.3 Social Network Analysis .................................................................................................................12 2.4 Design thinking ...............................................................................................................................18 2.5 Selection of the sample ....................................................................................................................20 2.6 Design of the research instrument ...................................................................................................21 2.7 Limitations .......................................................................................................................................23 Chapter 3: Results ................................................................................................................................24 3.1 Profile of the respondents ................................................................................................................24 3.2 Network metric analysis ..................................................................................................................27 3.3 Design thinking analysis ..................................................................................................................34 3.4 Masterplan Valle di Blenio ..............................................................................................................40 Chapter 4: Discussion .........................................................................................................................42 Chapter 5: Conclusion ........................................................................................................................44 Appendices ............................................................................................................................................47 References ................................................................................................................................. 56 III Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. Dr. Luthe Tobias, for his precious support, suggestions and patience during the writing of the thesis. Moreover, I really appreciated the teachings of Prof. Dr. Maggi Rico, Prof. Dr. Beritelli Pietro and Prof. Dr. Sharpley Richard on different topics which helped me to increase my knowledge in tourism. I am grateful to Dr. Caprara Dante from the Regional Development Agency who supported me in the collection of contacts. Big thanks go also to all the people who participated in the survey and made it possible for me to do the Social Network Analysis and also to all the stakeholders who took part in the design thinking workshop. To conclude, I appreciated the support from my parents and friends throughout the two years of the Master. Mariya Germanova IV List of Figures Figure 1: Map of the valley of Blenio from http://www.masterplan-vallediblenio.ch/ ............. 2 Figure 2: All the companies of the valley divided by sectors (%) ........................................... 24 Figure 3: Sectors of the companies who participated in the survey (%) .................................. 25 Figure 4: Tourism supply chain (%) ........................................................................................ 26 Figure 5: Municipality of origin of the companies (%) ........................................................... 26 Figure 6: Distribution of tourism companies in the three municipalities (%) .......................... 27 Figure 7: Participants in the design thinking workshop (the red and yellow nodes represent the actors who were contacted for the interviews sized according to the betweenness centrality measure. In red are those who did not participate, while in yellow are those who participated). .................................................................................................................................................. 29 Figure 8: Structure of the valley of Blenio analysed by betweenness (size and colour) and labeled by sectors. ................................................................................................................... 32 Figure 9: Most betweenness-central nodes with the ties coloured based on the attribute betweenness. ............................................................................................................................ 33 Figure 10: social network coloured by subgroups (Louvain), shaped by municipality (triangle for Blenio, circle for Acquarossa and square for Serravalle), in a centrality, radial layout. .. 38 Figure 11: social network coloured by subgroups (Louvain), shaped by municipality (triangle for Blenio, circle for Acquarossa and square for Serravalle), in a centrality, radial layout. Links coloured according to betweenness centrality % measure. ........................................... 39 V List of Tables Table 1: Centrality measures of the most betweenness central actors of the valley from diverse sectors and municipalities coloured by the participation. In red are those who did not participate, while in yellow are those who participated. ......................................................... 28 Table 2: Metrics of the analysed network. .............................................................................. 29 Table 3: Actors who participated in the design thinking ......................................................... 34 VI Abstract The Valley of Blenio is located in the Southern part of Switzerland and is well-known for the beauty of its nature. In order to maintain the natural resources, while ensuring a prosperous economy for tourism and also for the other sectors like agriculture, forestry and handcrafts, a long-term perspective and collaboration between stakeholders is essential. The main goal of the thesis is to understand how resilient the tourism-based economy in the Blenio valley is and how it can become more resilient. Moreover, the two specific aims are: to understand the state of collaboration amongst economic actors, which is important to understand the adaptive and innovative capacities (resilience) of the economy and to understand whether a more sustainable tourism would be supported by stakeholders, and what this exactly could mean for the valley in terms of resilience building and economic development. The assessment was done using 1. a quantitative Social Network Analysis of 438 enterprises of Blenio valley to determine if the system is resilient and to understand which the connections between the relevant players are using the graphical softwares Visone and Gephi, together with 2. a qualitative design thinking technique, which fosters creativity as it includes citizens with little or no knowledge about the problem. From the SNA it resulted that the valley has signs for higher innovative capacity, but as well indicating lower adaptive capacity to deal with sudden changes. While from the design thinking workshop, some problems emerged such as the missing hospitality culture, accommodation facilities and rivalry between municipalities. Keywords: sustainable tourism, design thinking, innovation, resilience, Social Network Analysis VII Introduction The valley of Blenio had been used as a passage toward the Alps thanks to Lucomagno pass. Acquarossa is the capital city of the valley. Due to a living economy, at the end of the 18th century a lot of people emigrated to France, England and Belgium. Thanks to the construction of the Acquarossa