Purchasing Local for Sustainable Development – and improved hospitality experiences

You might have heard the famous slogan “think global, act local” already. The thought behind this slogan is simple: the idea is that you should nurture a ‘care for all’ mentality and think of all humans and of the Earth itself (Cavagnaro & Curiel, 2012; 2023), while the actions that you take are local because these local steps can be of benefit to all of us. If you research that matter or the issue of sustainability further, you will find more slogans that are related to and inspired by the original slogan, such as “think global, buy local” or “think global, eat local” (Flint, 2004; Pimbert et al., 2015, Davidson.edu, 2024). So, apparently people believe that by eating and buying local they can generate significant benefits for their local surrounding and the direct stakeholders and in addition to that also contribute to a more sustainable society or world. This chapter is going to analyse these ideas further and show that – while the general idea is true – the matter is a bit more complicated than these statements seem to imply. In general, buying and consuming local can indeed be a significant contributor on all three sustainability dimensions. However, these benefits are seldom immediate and should therefore be sought after by design.