PROTECTED AREAS, TOURISM AND ACCOMMODATION: THE CASE OF LAZIO 
Tourism local economic development is related to its integration with other economic sectors. The sustainable tourism topic is an occasion to environmental valorisation on one hand and to sustain territorial growth and development on the other hand: specifi c to the Italian case about the distinctiveness of environmental heritage. The so called “green tourism” seems to be linked to other tourism typologies. The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between local development, sustainability and the accommodation system of Lazio. If the attention moves from the analysis of the Protected Areas of Lazio (par. 1), a special focus on the governance topic referred to the Protected Areas of Lazio, that seems to be a key factor, specially about the overlapping of the responsibilities (par. 2). Italian tourism is based on availability of accommodation knowledge. The second part of the paper investigates the factors to development of local tourism system based on the relationship between environmental protection and accommodation capacity (par. 3). The fi nal point is referred to territorial determiners in order to the valorisation of the territorial touristic product and touristic added value by the investigated relationship: the promotion could be one of the most important about the destination certifi cation (par. 4). The destination image based on the environment and tourism synergy could be an occasion to territorial competitiveness (par. 5). Keywords: Protected Area tourism, accommodation capacity, competitiveness, Systems approach.