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Periodic assessment of the 'state of play' in research outputs is an essential process for gauging academic progress and latent trends within a field of study. Bibliometric analysis of 839 sustainable tourism-related papers over a thirty-year period (1987–2017), extracted from a selection of the top ranked tourism journals confirmed a lack of reticulation and integration among individual contributions, in part due to an exponential increase in output, but parallel evidence of subdomain maturation. This includes reduced emphasis on definitional issues and increased focus on empirical applications as well as a broader 'pragmatic turn' indicated by the dominance of 'stakeholder' contributions related to industry and community. These moreover are qualified by recognition of the need to adopt and develop higher standards of methodological and theoretical engagement. We innovate by analysing engagement with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and reveal these to constitute a major latent theme, albeit to widely variable extents. It is recommended that these be mobilised as a pragmatic and universally embraced framework for engaging with sustainable tourism and salient external threats such as climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 3, good health and wellbeing, this paper reports on a study that examined how outdoor guides perceive their role in facilitating the psychological wellbeing of tourists who consume slow adventure experiences. These experiences, such as canoeing, stargazing or foraging, are characterised by a slower passage of time, immersion in the natural world and a sense of belonging to small social groups. Grounded in research on wellbeing from a positive psychology perspective, the study utilised semi-structured, in-depth, interviews with ten outdoor adventure guides in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Following a hermeneutic interpretive approach to analyse the interview transcripts, the findings revealed how perceptions of time, meaningful moments and a sense of togetherness are choreographed by slow adventure guides to shape tourists' psychological wellbeing through immersive guided experiences, ultimately helping tourists to re-establish a much-yearned-for connection with nature. The study adds to tourism, wellbeing and sustainability literature by providing new perspectives on psychological wellbeing through guided slow adventures. In particular the findings contribute to positive tourism, or tourism and positive psychology field of research, by revealing how mindful and eudaimonic visitor experiences are organised by adventure tour guides in natural settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current climate of intense turbulence, tourism must transform to a more sustainable development platform. Yet it remains unclear how the concept of sustainability is embedded at different levels of government policy and planning, and how this has evolved over time. This paper identifies the concept of sustainability as it is articulated in 339 Australian tourism strategic planning and policy documents published between 2000 and 2011. The paper examines the extent to which the concept of sustainable tourism is evident in the discourse of Australian tourism strategic planning documents at the national, state, regional and local levels, as well as the balance of the discourse in relation to sustainability objectives. The results show that the frequency of occurrence of sustainability as a concept has slightly increased in strategies over the past decade. At the same time, there has been a shift in the conceptualisation of sustainability, with thinking evolving from nature-based, social and triple bottom line concepts toward a focus on climate change, responsibility, adaption and transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade has seen significant growth in the tourism and hospitality literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Indeed, over 70% of the articles on this topic have been published in the past five years. Through the application of a stakeholder lens, this paper explores how CSR has developed within the extant literature, paying particular attention to current gaps and highlighting the contributions of the research in this special issue. This emerging research on CSR in the context of tourism and hospitality is pushing past the boundaries of early approaches to corporate sustainability by providing empirical evidence to support the importance of integrating a range of stakeholder perspectives and needs throughout the planning, implementation, and evaluation of CSR initiatives. We observe that while there is ample research on certain stakeholder groups such as management, employees, shareholders, and consumers, there is less emphasis on the role of communities and ecosystems as stakeholders and very little related to suppliers, NGOs, and government. Although tourism and hospitality firms may not be subject to the same pressures as other industries, there remain important opportunities to both document and engage these external stakeholders in the journey towards sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been some discussion about the relationship between sustainable development and sustainable tourism, and the need to further explore the relationships between theory and practice. Using grounded theory, this paper reviews new and existing research on Beijing's historic hutong neighbourhoods in relation to the housing, heritage conservation and hutong tourism sectors. Results indicate that sustainability as a theoretical category has at least five extant properties. Sustainability is relative, dynamic, normative, contestable and reflexive. Sustainability is relative in the sense that proponents of different sectors will construct it differently. It is dynamic in the related sense that this construction changes over time. Sustainability is normative because it is value-laden; one important ideal being that a sector should strive to become ever more sustainable. Proponents of different sectors will assert their values, hence sustainability is contestable. Finally, sustainability is reflexive in that the normative ideal may not occur, thus the sustainability of a sector will be reflexive of the nature of its evolving real world development. The paper explores the substance of these properties, together with a review of the several stages through which hutong tourism has passed in its short 20-year life, including the emergence of governance systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A major challenge for tourism as a social and economic activity and as an academic study is the integration of multiple perspectives into coherent frameworks. This paper explores this challenge and argues that a social representations approach allows for the critical analysis of formal approaches to tourism planning. Special attention is given to tourism development and governance in Africa and other emerging destinations. A content/semiotic analysis was conducted to examine figures summarising tourism planning models presented in the academic and government planning literature. This revealed a dominant social representation of tourism planning in which destination residents play only a minor role and are typically excluded from tourism governance and external agents, from both the private and public sectors, and their views of tourist needs are dominant. Most planning models were narrowly focused, had limited evaluation of all tourism benefits and costs, paid little attention to non-economic factors and did not integrate into wider development processes. The paper argues that this social representation assumes the core objective of tourism planning is to enhance outcomes for tourists and tourism businesses rather than for destination residents. Measures to enhance local governance capacity are suggested, with examples from the health, education and tourism sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an empirical case study of ecotourism in the island state of Cuba. The paper attempts to gauge the success Cuba has had in establishing eco-tourist practices that could be considered sustainable, and provides analysis of the various political factors that condition this success. Using some well-known benchmarks of sustainable eco-tourist practices, the paper presents the results of numerous interviews with key informants involved with ecological tourism in Cuba, archival research and observations from on-site visits to key ecotourism projects to examine the relative success of ecotourism on the island. Concluding that Cuba has had mixed success in moving to sustainable ecotourism, the paper examines the various political constraints that will likely determine the trajectory of Cuba's ecotourism in the near and medium term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been considerable discussion of sustainable tourism development, in both theory and practice. Less attention has been paid to the discourses, ideologies and power relations which help to shape 'sustainable' tourism policies and planning instruments. This paper analyses recent initiatives introduced by the regional government of the Canary Islands, designed to bring about a more sustainable model of regional tourism, including a temporary moratorium on tourism development and the drafting of a strategic and normative set of guidelines for sustainable tourism. The paper considers the contested nature of the public debate that accompanied these initiatives within the wider context of the regionally distinct pattern of tourism and capitalist development. It is argued that the legacy of uneven development, and the entrenched power of regional economic and political elites, is likely to undermine the prospects for a just model of sustainable tourism, and to consolidate the continuing privatisation of space and socio-spatial inequalities across the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), particularly the micro-enterprise, dominate the tourism industry numerically, and play a key role in delivering quality experiences to the tourist. Yet research by Hillary (2000) suggested that SMEs from all the economic sectors are responsible for around 70% of total industrial pollution. Strategic papers for the tourism sector in the United Kingdom refer to the promotion of emerging trade association activity in influencing SMEs' environmental behaviour. This paper examines the results of a postal survey of United Kingdom trade associations to assess their role in developing sustainable practice amongst SME tourism businesses. Responses from 17 national trade associations with a tourism-related membership coverage of around 12,500 SMEs suggested that only a small minority regarded meeting environmental criteria or signing up to an environmental code of conduct as compulsory requirements of membership, whereas there was more activity for different types of voluntary initiative, often through the aid of partnerships. Overall, there was less leadership from trade associations than was seemingly portrayed in the strategic documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism is a key driver of global socio-economic progress. However, its sustainability is at risk from multiple shocks and hazards that threaten livelihoods. Surprisingly little is known about the complex drivers of destination vulnerability, leading to the creation and application of ineffective resilience-building solutions. The paper presents the Destination Sustainability Framework (DSF) designed to assess destination vulnerability and resilience, and support successful resilience-building initiatives. Holistic in nature, the DSF comprises: (1) the shock(s) or stressor(s); (2) the interconnected dimensions of vulnerability – exposure, sensitivity, and system adaptiveness; (3) the dynamic feedback loops that express the multiple outcomes of actions taken (or not); (4) the contextualised root causes that shape destinations and their characteristics; (5) the various spatial scales; and (6) multiple timeframes within which social-ecological change occurs. This innovative framework is significant because it's the first framework to chart the complex manifestation of vulnerability and resilience in tourism destinations. Further, it brings tourism sustainability research in line with wider debates on achieving sustainability within the dynamic coupled human–environment system, doing so through the inclusion of insights from contemporary systems approaches, including chaos–complexity theory, vulnerability approaches, sustainability science, resilience thinking, along with the geographies of scale, place and time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of research is emerging on tourism and partnerships in protected areas, but conceptual development remains fragmented. This paper tackles this challenge by focusing on three aspects important for sustainability: (1) complexity (nested systems of biophysical environments, tourism and park management structures, community- resident systems, local-global systems and use-conservation gap; (2) scale, structure and scope of collaborations (including community involvement and control) and (3) challenges of implementation and long term structuring (for sustainability and success). Some related questions are: How does the tourism system fit with the protected area system? Who represents "Nature" in negotiations over conservation and use? How can plans and programmes be effectively enacted at the local level for long term success? A theoretical discussion plus an example of community-based collaboration for conservation and economic development in Bolivia (Chalalán Ecolodge) are provided to explore these questions. Chalalán shows an evolving partnership between local and international stakeholders toward local control, and also a complex relationship between local-traditional and scientific knowledge, and cultural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism has been encouraged in many of the world's poorer countries as a means of stimulating development. However, tourism is vulnerable to external shocks, which can damage a host country's economy, especially where reliance on tourism is high. This paper focuses on Bali, Indonesia where tranquillity was shattered by terrorist bombs in October 2002, and again in October 2005. It examines the impact of the 2002 bombings on the island's beach vendors,members of the informal sector who work at the margins of tourism. The UK's Department for International Development's (DFID) model of sustainable development is used as a guide to assess notional changes in vendor livelihoods and reveals the sharp reduction in their access to financial capital once tourism had collapsed. Fieldwork showed that livelihoods were sustained with difficulty after the terrorist attacks and that social capital played a major role in survival. Although visitor numbers to Bali are recovering, the research reveals significant changes in vendors' livelihood patterns. Social capital remains strong though it has changed in certain respects as a consequence of terrorist activity, one of the most negative changes being an increase in local religious tensions. The authors question the wisdom of encouraging tourism as a major vehicle for development without simultaneously promoting alternative income-generating opportunities to offer a safety net against external shocks to a vulnerable tourism industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The precautionary principle is an emerging norm of international environmental policy affirmed in many treaties and laws. The principle, congruent to the ideal of sustainable development, is a controversial future-focused planning and regulatory mechanism which mandates that to protect against threats of serious and irreversible damage, precaution should be exercised even before harm can be scientifically demonstrated. The intent of this paper is to provide a literature review of the precautionary principle, examine the fundamental concepts underlying the principle and present an introductory discussion regarding its applicability to the tourism industry. Time and again numerous direct and indirect impacts are produced by the tourism industry, yet the potential for integrating precaution into tourism planning has not been examined. The authors consider the critical elements of the principle (uncertainty, risk, costa benefit analysis and science) in relation to the tourism industry, and provide examples of reference to the principle in the policy documents of non-governmental tourism organisations. An adapted framework is proposed for incorporating the precautionary principle into better tourism-industry decision-making. The precautionary principle is predicated as a viable tourism development tool and planning mechanism that safeguards environmental and human health by anticipating and controlling for future impacts of tourism. INSET: Untitled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]