When it comes to food and alimentation, referring to sustainable tourism, it is important to prevent food waste linked to the bad habits of both tourists and tourism professionals, focusing on a series of good practices and “eco-friendly gestures” in tourism. In a second moment, we could talk about innovative approaches in the management of food and its reuse and/or disposal. All that, in order to reduce the environmental impact by approaching the “zero waste” model.

A constant rethinking by both tourists and tourism professionals is therefore necessary to help and ensure the best use of food resources. It is necessary for the tourist consultant and/or tourism professional to know the needs (tastes and food preferences) of the tourists, guarantee quality and safety in the food delivering while avoiding waste. Tourism professionals must be innovative as well as competitive, meeting the deepest needs of their clients, the travellers, including those related to eating habits. It’s very important to plan tourists tailored offers, effective and targeted to the travellers.

In addition, tourists are more and more “experiential tourists” ready to know and discover local realities and their peculiarities, personally tasting food and wine products but also being careful to not waste too much resources. The tourism professional must be able to provide and design new activities, including for example visits to local producers and staying/accommodations in farms “agrotourism”, cooking classes or tasting sessions of local food. These activities are part of a new “tourist’s ecological awareness” (eco-awareness), through informing and strengthening the tourist’s knowledge about the local territories. This knowledge is very important in order to guarantee the social and economic survival of a territory and in particular of small areas (urban or rural) which make tourism their strong strategy for surviving. It is therefore a good way to revive the local customs and discover the cultural identity of the territory, trough the typical culinary art and its traditions.