Based on fieldwork carried out in 1999 and in 2000 in southern Tuscany, this dissertation compares the local applications of the ideals of sustainable development described in the law on agritourism in two research sites of the region that present the highest degree of socioeconomic contrast. The first, Castel del Colle, is a small-scale tourism destination located in an inland area that has been strongly affected by the rural exodus of the postwar period. The second, Belloro, is a coastal mass tourism site that has experienced a significant increase in population in the postwar period.