Sustainable energy management: Are tourism SMEs in Poland ready for circular economy solutions?

As a key aspect of tourism competitiveness, sustainability plays an important role in profiling Europe as a tourism destination in key source markets. As in any other region(s), comprehensive engagement and involvement of key stakeholders plays an essential component and role in developing Europe as a sustainable tourist destination. This type of engagement and involvement requires a cross-border collaboration in order to establish a common region identity as a means of managing complex processes of globalization. The initial requirement for such an interaction is to identify appropriate relevant stakeholders for European sustainable tourism and to facilitate cross-border dialogue and interactions. In the field of energy, it is important to take into consideration both energy sustainability and energy efficiency. Energy effectiveness can be described as the interaction between energy produced and energy induced/invested. Sustainable energy can be assessed from the perspective of consumption/production or the impact it has on the environment and society. This study focuses on level of implementation of circular economy in the energy sector of tourist SMEs in Poland, which can be also understand as a level of implementation of ideas such as high efficiency energy systems and sustainable energy management. The area of research is Polish coastal area, which is a part of the South Baltic Region. This Region has exceptional potential for becoming a forerunner in achieving sustainable tourism goals of the EU. Utilizing the “sustainable energy theory”, the purpose of this research is to examine energy management problems with regard to sustainable development for SMEs involved in Polish tourism in the South Baltic Region. A structured interview method was used as well as a comparative analysis method. The main conclusion is that the tourism sector in Polish part of South Baltic Region is, at different levels, ready to implement a change from linear economy in the context of energy. In the case of Poland although there are some challenges, it is still very encouraging in that people are beginning to see and view sustainable management, whatever the problems or solutions, as a core living item and not something that can be ignored or pushed aside any longer. © 2019, Aalborg University press. All rights reserved.