Do we need or we want to share? The Role of Non Profit Sharing platforms

Abstract

Tourism is an economic activity that must be rethought in order to respond to our fast society changing, as a result of its increasing mobility and interconnection needs, both of them facilitated by technological development. The new scenario, where traditional tourism is transcended by releasing certain static structures and changing patterns of consumption, is described by the escape from an increasingly homogenised and standardised activity towards a more intimate and responsible with the environment one. This new paradigm should enhance the value of cultural exchange by thinking glocally, what involves a more flexible structure when travelling by the time new markets are opened with the final purpose of procuring an optimum level of human and social development. In this context, the purpose of the current study is to discern which is the main reason that leads the traveller to use exchange platforms: an economic need resulting from an endemic impoverishment or, on the contrary, it’s about a will resulting from a growing concern for the environment. Keywords: environmental consciousness, non profit sharing tourism platforms, optimum social, responsible tourism, sustainability, tourism. JEL classification: TBA.