Volume 5 Article informations Alternative tourism and local development: emergence of new territorial dynamics NAJEM DHAHER Abstract Long ignored, natural and cultural resources have become major concerns for both public and private actors. Today, while these resources seem to be the only hope for a way out of the crisis for certain disadvantaged and landlocked areas, thinking about their exploitation as development tools has become an economic issue. The growing interest of different urban and rural actors in development that focuses on environmental amenities and forgotten historic sites is a testament to the new growth potential that other tourism can represent for local development. Indeed, after the failure of the seaside model and facing a process of tourism that is leading to the commodification of territories, public and private actors are timidly moving towards alternative tourism and new citizen practices are emerging as well as initiatives by some associations to design and to carry out concrete actions that try to reconcile tourism and sustainable development and to invent an «other tourism». Keywords Actor, territory, local development, alternative tourism, environment