4L tourism (landscape, leisure, learning and limit): responding to new motivations and expectations of tourists to improve the competitiveness of Alpine destinations in a sustainable way

Upon the changes that have taken place in the tourist sector since the 1990s, the SMTEs and the destinations are called to reflect on the opportunity to redefine the strategic and organizational assets in order to respond to new needs and desires coming from a more segmented demand side. This paper presents the results of a research conducted in the Dolomites, the most important alpine area in terms of numbers of tourists, representative of a community tourist destination and where the tourists organize the vacation (do-it-yourself tourists). The Dolomites are now in the "mature" phase of the development life cycle and need a new approach to the market in order to maintain loyalty among current visitors and to gain loyalty in new tourist segments. The research was carried out in summer and winter 2001 -2002 by administering 5,000 online questionnaires to a representative sampling of "do-it-yourself" tourists. The objective was to study the decision-making and to build profiles of do-it-yourself tourists. From these profiles it is possible to identify strategies that the SMTEs and the alpine destination as a whole could undertake to achieve the goals described above.