The ‘Greening’ of Tourism Micro-businesses: Outcomes of Focus Group Investigations in South East Cornwall

The response of micro-businesses to sustainability issues, and their use of environmental management tools and systems, are often presented as simply scaled-down versions of those of larger businesses in the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector as a whole. This paper presents the findings of a series of focus groups with the owners of tourism micro-businesses in South East Cornwall about their awareness, understanding and adoption of sustainable tourism practices. The results reveal a complex and diverse response to the concept that resists such generalizations. A genuine need for measures to increase awareness and integrate sustainability issues within business practice is highlighted. Initiatives that do not account for the heterogeneity of the sector are likely to have only limited success.