Implementation Challenges in Tourism-Related Green Deals: Three cases from the Intelligent Cities Challenge

Abstract

Purpose - The European Green Deal represents the European Union's strategy to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, emphasizing decoupling economic growth from resource use and a 55% emissions reduction by 2030. The European Commission’s Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC) is one of the initiatives implemented to support the green transition at a local level, specifically via Local Green Deals (LGDs), fostering public-private collaboration across various sectors, including tourism. Currently, no study compares the implementation challenges experienced by Italian cities from the ICC's first edition (2020-2022). This study addresses this gap through exploratory research on the final reports of the cities of Pescara, Rome, and Venice, which implemented tourism-related LGDs. The purpose is to identify the main issues encountered in involving public and private stakeholders, providing useful insights for the Italian cities participating in the second edition of the ICC and advancing understanding of sustainable tourism governance. Design/methodology/approach - Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) was used to examine the final reports from the three Italian cities (Pescara, Rome, Venice) that participated in the first edition of the ICC with a tourism related LGD. The methodology specifically adopted an open coding framework that was structured around three primary phases: (i) conceptualising, (ii) defining categories, and (iii) developing categories. Originality/value - This research uses a comparative QCA of Italian ICC tourism LGD reports, uncovering core issues like stakeholder disengagement, institutional silos, and resource shortages, previously unexamined in detail. Findings align with and confirm literature on participatory governance and green urban transitions. Future studies could scale to all European ICC cities post-second edition or evaluate intervention efficacy through longitudinal tracking. Practical implications - The findings of the study can be used by public administrations planning to involve public and private stakeholders in participative tourism governance processes. Specifically, the findings suggest that, to tackle the main issues encountered by the analysed cities in implementing their Local Green Deals, public administrations should focus on efficient stakeholders’ engagement methods, pool resources and coordinate with other public entities to avoid fragmentation and resource limitations.