Tourism is one of the economic driving forces of Spain: the consolidation of existing tourist destinations and new market niches encourage an upward trend of tourism. The economic impacts produced by tourism are one of the major concerns of the authorities; the question is whether it is possible to continue growing without compromising our environment. This work attempts to answer this issue by analysing one of the tourism segments with higher growth in recent years: rural tourism. Using a model of partial least squares (PLS), we will analyse the environmental impacts from the point of view of the supply and its relationships with the environmental management conducted. We will also analyse the rural establishments from a global point of view and, depending on their category, explain the factors which determine the sustainable behaviour of providers, and identify that the establishments of low categories have a more sustainable conduct.

Young people today are leaving the parental home; i.e., living independently at increasingly later ages. In Mediterranean Europe in particular, most males, and a large portion of females, continue to live in their parents home until they are into their thirties.In the case of Spain, in recent years, a series of economic and social changes have led to a rise in young peoples uptake of non-compulsory stages of education, resulting in increasingly late arrival on the job market (with this extended education and also high youth unemployment), characterized by higher temporary employment rates and greater vulnerability in the process of joining the labor force than previous cohorts. As regards to living independently, despite a very large increase in housing stock over the past ten years, young Spaniards encounter increasing difficulties in gaining access to housing because of higher purchase prices and the structure of the rental market.This paper will study the socioeconomic factors that have influenced the young Spanish population when deciding to leave the family home (i.e., becoming autonomous).