Business models for sustainability: An analysis of religious accommodations’ evolutionary dynamics

There is an urgent need to understand how to develop business models for sustainability given the current socioeconomic and ecological challenges for firms’ competitiveness, especially in the tourism sector. Significantly, research has identified the particularities of religious accommodations as a sustainable tourism niche, but little is known about the processes driving their business model. This signals the lack of theoretical perspectives for holistically understanding the dynamic role of this sustainable business model and, consequently, its associated benefits for firms, destinations, and society. In response, we integrate the business model literature with the coevolution concept for conducting a longitudinal analysis of 10 Italian religious accommodations. We focus on the dynamic of the interdependencies between internal and external influencing factors. The findings provide a co-evolutionary framework in which lifestyle entrepreneurship plays a key role in religious accommodations’ sustainable business model driving processes. This approach may help entrepreneurs and policymakers creatively reinforce sustainability.