Creating sustainable tourism ventures in protected areas: An actor-network theory analysis

Sustainable tourism is a growing segment of tourism worldwide. If such ventures are to thrive in society, we have to learn more about how they are created and sustained. Specifically, one has to explore, not only the attributes of the founders, but the actions that they deploy in creating such ventures. This paper investigated how a principal actor created a sustainable tourism business in the Amazon forest. The analysis showed that the actor deployed the phases that were proposed by actor-network theory (ANT) framework. Interestingly, the study found that the actor created her network by using what we called an orchestration modus instead of the unification approach that is widely known in ANT literature. Finally, the analysis showed that the ability of the principal actor to learn new things, to adapt to change and her acts of creating spaces for global experts played a significant role in her success.

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