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A shift from memorable to transformative experiences is taking place in the emerging transformation economy. Experiences constitute the essence of the tourism industry. While the literature has recognized the link between sustainability and local food, how local food affects tourists’ perceived sustainability, service experience, satisfaction, and advocacy is little known. This paper contributes to filling this research gap by examining the relationship between local food and sustainability at Spanish destinations within the transformative service theoretical framework. We conducted a questionnaire on 1476 Spanish tourists to show that service experience, perceived sustainability, and local food, are fundamental to any tourist destination strategy. Data reveal that perceived sustainability is a determining factor of tourists’ service experience at the destination, and the perception of local food reinforces perceived sustainability. Moreover, tourists’ service experience significantly and positively affects satisfaction and, consequently, advocacy. The significance of safe experience as an additional dimension of the service experience is also shown. This paper contributes to the transformative service literature in the field of tourism by demonstrating the enhancing role of local food over visitors’ sustainable experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, the tourism industry has been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated changes in international travel. This paper draws on interviews with 51 women working in the tourism sector in Tanzania and examines gendered impacts of the pandemic on their welfare, which instigated or accelerated entrepreneurial activities as an attempt to protect women's incomes and security. Women in the study adopted one of three entrepreneurial strategies: they (re)committed to the tourism industry, working on developing their own skills and business ideas; they diversified their business interests to have a 'Plan B' in addition to tourism to safeguard against future crises; or they moved away from tourism altogether, focusing instead on other less volatile sectors. The crisis caused by the pandemic exposed tourism as a risky business and a gamble for many women, who are considering leaving the sector. This represents a significant obstacle for the tourism industry's recovery and sustainability and illustrates some of the limitations of tourism entrepreneurship for supporting and empowering women in the Global South. Priority policy areas for supporting women to remain within tourism are identified to help support women entrepreneurs and ensure their skills and enthusiasm contribute to rebuilding and reshaping the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews a content analysis of papers published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, the only journal exclusively devoted to sustainable tourism research over the past 15 years (1993-2007). Based on a detailed examination of the contents, a database was developed which consists of information about (1) volume/number/year; (2) study areas; (3) forms of tourism; (4) subject themes; (5) research perspectives; (6) concept and measurement and (7) methodology. A series of trends describing the growth of sustainable tourism research has been identified. The findings present the journal's contribution to theoretical debates, methodological sophistication and practical implications in sustainable tourism development. Future directions for sustainable tourism research are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many historic and post-industrial cities, tourism is often positioned as an important component for urban regeneration. Yet, the promise of sustainability and social transformation is often empty as policymakers focus on sustaining tourism over supporting greater social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Furthermore, the pandemic has drawn attention to the unsustainable nature of the neoliberal model of tourism engagement. Due to the paucity of research exploring spatial injustice in urban tourism, this study examines the impact policymaking and governance structures have on urban destinations and the potential inequalities this creates. Drawing on Edward Soja’s approach to Lefebvre’s The Right to the City (1968), this research explores how lessons learned during the pandemic in the tourist-historic city of York, UK, could transform tourism in historic urban spaces. Taking an interpretive case study approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with leading stakeholders to understand the spatial dimensions of the lived experiences of policymaking. The hopeful signs emerging from York’s response to the pandemic demonstrate how communities can reclaim voice to build sustainable and purposeful models of engagement. This paper contributes to our understanding by demonstrating the transformative potential that future policymaking could have for reducing the negative impacts of tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The hotel industry is increasingly developing voluntary measures to tackle waste generation, but they fall short of the problems faced by municipal waste services in many tourist destinations. This paper exemplifies how a collaboratively designed waste tariff reform for hotels in a tourism-intensive municipality can achieve a sustainable waste management system through stronger collective action, involving not only the hotel sector but also the city council and waste management companies. The co-created Pay-As-You-Throw tariff meets the demands of the stakeholders by establishing a progressive waste charge that penalizes hotels based on their waste generation intensity, defined as the ratio between waste flows and size. In addition, a competition system is introduced by imposing penalties (or rewards) according to whether the waste generation intensity is above (or below) the sector average during the settlement period, incentivizing waste prevention, recycling and encouraging long-term investment in sustainable waste management. The tariff is consistent with the principles of the EU’s Circular Economy Package and offers hotels a competitive advantage, while ensuring a progressive waste charging system and waste management cost recovery. Empirical results of the co-created tariff show a reduction in waste generation intensity and signs of increased recycling rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced employment in the Spanish tourism sector from a gender perspective and aims to infer its impact on sustainability. We use employment data from 2002 (Q1) to 2020 (Q4) on women and men in the Spanish hospitality sector and employ fractional integration methods to determine the temporary scope of the shock. Our results suggest that the impact of the pandemic will have a permanent effect, unless strong policy measures are adopted to resume pre-crisis trends. We also found that persistence is higher for women's than for men's employment. Therefore, women seem to be more vulnerable to the shocks of COVID-19, making sustainable development of tourism in Spain more difficult. Based on our results, we offer policy recommendations to counter the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender equality and tourism sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many ways, the expansion of commercial for-profit, P2P social dining platforms has mirrored those within mobility and accommodation sectors. However its dynamics and impacts have received less consideration to date, with a notable paucity of attention to the hosts of social dining events. The aim of this paper is to address this research lacuna. Through its exploration of the social dining platforms VizEat in Athens and Eatwith in Barcelona, this paper identifies, analyses and compares the social practices of hosts around their social dining events in two key tourist destinations in Europe. Data is gathered through multiple methods from participating in and observing social dining events in each city to interviews with key stakeholders in the P2P social dining process (such as hosts, platform employees and ambassadors). The research reveals how dynamic rules, tools, skills and understandings shape and reshape the performance of hosting social dining events. It exposes tensions and ongoing negotiations between hosts and guests regarding matters of authenticity and privacy, an uneven risk burden between hosts and platforms with regards liability and scant regard for matters of sustainability. As a result there is little alignment between P2P social dining and the goals of sustainable tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study conceptualizes labour mobility in the tourism and hospitality industry within the context of a developing country. Previous conceptualizations of labour mobility in the tourism and hospitality industry are unable to adequately represent specific economic and socio-cultural settings that may shape the mobility of tourism and hospitality labour in non-western developing countries. Interview data for the study on which this paper is based were collected from Kathmandu, Nepal in two phases in 2015/2016 and 2019, and analyzed using a constructivist grounded theory approach. The study identifies a pervasive phenomenon of 'necessity-induced (im)mobility' that either discourages or encourages mobility among tourism and hospitality workers. Several factors highlighted by this study show that the way mobility is perceived and executed by tourism and hospitality workers in developing counties, such as Nepal, is in stark contrast to how it is perceived in western and developed nations. This study has also identified several issues that may have implications for the sustainable supply of qualified labour (with higher education qualifications and skills) in the tourism and hospitality industry, particularly in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Favourable media coverage and the New Zealand space agency's focus on commercial opportunities, positioned within the Ministry of Business Innovation & Employment that is also responsible for tourism, provides a basis for a developing space tourism industry. There are many possible environmental, cultural, and geo-political consequences to being a space launch state with implications for tourism, sustainability, and tourism branding. The '100% PURE NEW ZEALAND' tourism brand in use since 1999 has received on-going criticism from various sources in response to reports of wide-spread environmental degradation in New Zealand, dairy farm conversions causing nitrate run-off and contamination of waterways, and New Zealand's comparatively high per-capita level of greenhouse gas emissions. The establishment of commercial space launch operations, and the ancillary industrial and service facilities required, opens a new dimension of environmental hazard for New Zealand that has not been considered in the space launch legislation, or any other existing legislation, for regulating the environmental impact of rocket powered high altitude and space vehicles. This paper will examine the environmental, cultural, geopolitical and regulatory issues for New Zealand as a space launch state, and the likely implications for sustainable tourism, tourism branding, and New Zealand as a space tourism destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's tourism entrepreneurship has been identified as fundamental to meeting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals of both 'gender equality' and 'decent growth and economic growth' but neither entrepreneurship nor sustainability are gender neutral in the tourism industry. Therefore, further research is required into how gender influences sustainable entrepreneurship, providing insights for tourism entrepreneurship policy. In response to a prevalent essentialism in much of the literature, this paper adopts a post-structuralist framework, alongside a mixed-methods approach, to understand the complex role of gender and sustainability at different stages of entrepreneurship. The initial focus is on a survey of 539 tourism students (women and men) which analyses the latent and nascent entrepreneurship stages, while 19 interviews with established tourism entrepreneurs provide further insights into these issues. The analysis focusses especially on the individual characteristics of risk, personal attitudes to entrepreneurship and behavioural control. While broad gender differences are observed, notably in societal perceptions of risk aversion, there is also considerable blurring of the approaches of established entrepreneurs in particular to sustainability and entrepreneurship. If entrepreneurship is to enhance sustainability, policy needs to account for the non-essentialised gendered dimensions that inhibit and enable sustainable tourism entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tourism sector is often characterized by precarious working conditions. With the aim of promoting sustainable business practices and addressing labour concerns, many tourism service providers are keen to set and enforce sustainability standards in their value chains. However, there is a contested debate on the local impacts of voluntary standards. This paper focuses on tourism labour and investigates how sustainability standards can contribute to capability building and social upgrading processes at the firm-level. It argues that most research on sustainability standards has analysed the "visible" outcomes of standard implementations while a process-based perspective is largely missing. The paper addresses this gap through a novel approach and makes both theoretical and empirical contributions. Conceptually, it integrates the dynamic capabilities approach into global value chain (GVC) research. This enhances current conceptualisations of capabilities and the understanding of upgrading processes within GVCs. Empirically, the paper investigates the South African standard "Fair Trade in Tourism" through a longitudinal, mixed-methods research design that extended over a period of eight years. The findings show how sustainability standards in tourism can contribute to capability building and upgrading at the firm-level. The paper concludes by arguing that policy makers should better resource local standard-setting organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper explores theoretical linkages between scientific tourism and sustainability outcomes within indigenous communities. Drawing on sustainability science, boundary work theory, indigenous knowledge, and decolonial frameworks, we present a typology of scientific tourism situations mapped according to the degree in which they allow co-production of solutions that combine indigenous and scientific knowledge. This paper is based on the premise that co-produced solutions are essential for sustainability outcomes and they require effective boundary organizations capable of translating and coordinating across cultural paradigms. Two approaches to scientific tourism that can facilitate sustainability outcomes, particularly in indigenous communities, are proposed. The first approach is endogenous to the academy and requires cognition of knowledge plurality and researcher reflexivity. The second is exogenous to the academy and entails boundary organizations as well as tools and strategies necessary for horizontal co-production. Implications for future scholarship on scientific tourism in marginalized and/or global south communities are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The domains of transport and tourism exist and operate together and apart from one another. They have complex, interesting but also largely unsustainable relationships. Despite this, research into sustainable tourism has often focused on that which is stationary, without due consideration of the wide-ranging implications of tourism-mobilities. Conventional conceptualisations of tourism-transport are often limited to the tourist's travel to, and occasionally around, tourism destinations – neglecting the various ways that actors, objects and policies are all (made) mobile. As an introduction to the special issue on 'Innovative Approaches to Sustainable Transport, Mobilities and Tourism', this paper adopts a broad framing of innovation to encourage research in new directions. After thinking through the role of innovation in sustainable tourism-transport, the paper points to some key, inter-related themes in transport and mobilities; dominant mobility systems (auto/aero-mobilities), the sustainable mobility paradigm and mobility justice. Following this, a number of potential research themes are identified which may help to galvanise sustainable tourism-transport scholarship: first, where, why, for whom, and with what implications immobilities occur in tourism-transport; second, tourism-transport beyond anthropocentrism; third, the social embeddedness of technological innovations; and fourth, intersections of work and labour for tourism-transport. These directions – and others besides - may contribute to, and potentially accelerate, transitions towards tourism-transport sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how visitor travel-mode choices to festivals are formed and how sustainable travel could be encouraged. The empirical analysis focuses on Hay Festival of Literature and Arts using semi-structured interviews with visitors. Themes and topics explored through the interviews were informed by theories of travel behaviour. Findings highlight a range of external and internal factors influencing visitor travel-mode choices, which are closely interrelated. External factors reflect environmental elements related to the location and type of overnight accommodation, festival location, travel time and quality of public transport services. Internal factors include autonomy in travelling different routes and times, travelling with young children, cost of travel and physical-health and mobility issues. An additional internal factor was routine use of the car and extension of this behaviour when travelling to the festival. Based on the consolidation of the empirical findings, this paper also proposes a new theoretical framework for capturing a more comprehensive understanding of event related travel decisions. To encourage further sustainable travel, festival organisers and policy makers should not only focus exclusively on travel time and cost but consider a wider array of factors that are unique to festivals and their geographic locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a grounded theory to explain why some small businesses in tourism adopt sustainable business practices while others do not, even when they share environmental and wider sustainability concerns. It does so based on research undertaken among business owners in Crete. The paper starts by considering studies on sustainability awareness, knowledge and the mechanisms for accepting responsibility. Secondly, it summarises the influence of task difficulty and effort on sustainability self-efficacy. Thirdly, it focuses on social comparisons and vicarious experiences, as a way of learning what is important. Finally, it examines powerlessness due to perceived situational constraints. In so doing, the study finds that self-efficacy helps to explain sustainable attitude formation and the attitude-behaviour gap; it partly shifts the locus of responsibility for an inability to act sustainably away from the individual and towards their context. The paper contributes to the theoretical literature on small businesses and sustainability, and leads to new avenues for policy interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages the "culture gap" in the sustainable tourism literature by addressing issues of cultural sustainability through an investigation of traditional festivals in Bhutan. Cultural sightseeing is the major motivation for tourism to Bhutan, and religious festivals are among the primary contexts within which local people and tourists interact. Tourism brings forces of modernization and globalization into contact with traditional practices, with various consequences. Based primarily on on-site observation of religious festivals, and interviews with Bhutanese monks and abbots, this paper explores the incursion of modernization into traditional festivals. Bauman's concept of "liquid modernity" is applied to articulate the intertwining of traditional and modern practices and frames of reference in constantly changing ways. This leads to a critical discussion of how the case of Bhutan's festivals reveals the necessity of seeing cultural sustainability in fluid and evolutionary terms, especially in our "liquid modern" times. Foreign tourists and local youth are identified as particular agents of liquid modernism in the religious festivals, bringing perspectives and behaviors that diverge from those of the traditional society within which the meaning and practices of these festivals are rooted, which in turn affects the performance and performers of the dances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines stakeholder engagement in the collaborative marketing of community-based tourism enterprises (CBTEs). The study explored the various collaborative marketing approaches shaped by diverse stakeholders’ perspectives on ways to achieve the sustainable development of CBTEs in Vietnam. The results of 30 in-depth, semi-structured interviews from three CBTEs in Vietnam showed that three collaborative marketing approaches were prevailed among CBTE stakeholders and were categorised as commercial viability-driven, community development-driven and balanced approaches. The approaches’ differences were reflected in the marketing objectives to achieve CBTE sustainability, the central linkages of CBTE collaborative marketing, and the facilitators of stakeholder collaboration. The research found a knowledge gap between researchers and research participants and divergent perspectives among different categories of research participants regarding marketing and CBTE sustainability. This paper implies the role of a knowledge co-production approach to drive the stakeholder engagement in CBTE collaborative marketing for CBTEs’ long-term success. Additionally, this study provides insights into the discussion of marketing for sustainable tourism. Furthermore, the findings contribute to a better understanding of the collaborative approach at the organisational level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of upheaval and uncertainty justice has come to the fore as a key principle to guide tourism development and policy. Justice is being sought by individuals, groups and societies, as vulnerable individuals and populations seek to be able to protect themselves from longstanding and deeply embedded historical, and new emerging forms of, injustice. In response, this special issue presents a range of theoretical perspectives and empirical insights into justice and tourism. Given the early stage of theory building in this field, tourism researchers are well served by exploring the multi-/inter-/trans-disciplinary knowledge domains in which theories of justice are being addressed. In this paper frame some emerging principles and approaches to justice and tourism as addressed in the special issue, including social justice, equity and rights; inclusiveness and recognition; sustainability and conservation; well-being, belonging and capabilities; posthumanistic justice; and governance and participation. In doing so we outline the wide range of issues and insights for 'just' tourism that demand urgent and rigorous scholarly attention. A nascent new platform of research on justice and ethics is emerging to guide tourism and sustainability. This special issue offers valuable insights and guidance towards this timely and important research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Despite the prevalence of sustainability discourses across the Global North, for the majority of people abstract issues of sustainability often have a low salience with the realities of travel choices. Researchers examining sustainable tourism recognise that any changes resulting in sustainable performance are likely to come about as a result of shifts in everyday highly routinised social practices, relations and socio-technical structures. Attending to these debates, this paper examines relations between social practice, sustainability and tourism through the rise in foraging tourism in the United Kingdom. Using evidence from interviews and media analysis detailing perspectives of foraging course leaders and attendees, alongside participant observation, the paper records the ways in which foraging experiences are negotiated and accomplished in commercial contexts and what participants “do” with the ideas and practices post-experience. By engaging with debates surrounding the meanings of sustainable tourism, the paper extends understanding of these concepts through the identification of foraging tourism as a facilitator in rethinking everyday practice and discourse. The paper ends by evaluating the potentials of tourism in facilitating sustainable performance and discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated sustainability indicators for tourism (ISIT) address tourism as an element of both economic and socio-ecological systems and as actively integrated in multi-level policy-making and planning. This paper aims to review studies of ISIT in peer-reviewed journals with a focus on methodological approaches. By specifically examining ISIT, this study embraces the interdisciplinary nature of both sustainability science and tourism studies. The results are based on a systematic literature review and categorization of the studies’ academic disciplines, methods and organization of indicators. The results reveal that despite being a relatively young area of study, research on ISIT has developed simultaneously across multiple academic disciplines, and is expanding. There seems to be greater interest in developing new methodologies than applying existing indicator frameworks. Most papers refer to indicators thematically and thus discuss tourism separately in the contexts of environmental, social or economic impact. However, emerging approaches analyze tourism as a system of interconnected components and an element of multi-level policy-making. These approaches emphasize public participation and a continuous redefinition of sustainability challenges in response to changes in socio-ecological systems. Current research on ISIT thus focuses on the interconnectedness of indicators and sustainable development as a dynamic process rather than an end goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the theoretical lens of social capital, this paper examines the role of small tourist food businesses and their impact on the sustainability of the destination and local food supply chains. The paper analyses the experiences of small business owner-managers highlighting the complex and subtle nature of the socially responsible strategies used to progress sustainability in a tourist destination. The findings show that authentic lifestyles, motivated by intrinsic not just extrinsic rewards, are driving disruptive social change upstream and downstream in the tourist food supply chain. Small food business owner-managers are catalysts for “common” good, and as supporters for ethical and sustainable food chains have considerable local tourism influence and impact. Social capital strengthens their sense of destination ownership and fuels an obligation to protect their fragile tourist resources. The intersection between social capital, authenticity and responsibility among small food businesses in the tourist industry is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Great hopes have been placed in the sharing economy to provide a new business model based on peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges of underutilized assets. As a model, the sharing economy has been expected to make significant contributions to sustainability, providing new opportunities for entrepreneurship, more sustainable use of resources, and consumer co-operation in tight economic networks. However, in recent years, digital platforms have turned into the most important actors in the global sharing economy, turning global corporations, such as AirBnB, Booking, or TripAdvisor into intermediaries controlling and profiting from most transactions. Focused on accommodation, this paper conceptualizes the sharing economy in comparison to the wider collaborative economy, and discusses its social, economic, environmental, and political impacts in comparison to the sustainable development goals. It concludes that the sharing economy has great potential to make very significant contributions to sustainability, though the model is increasingly being replaced by the collaborative economy, which performs as an extension and acceleration of neoliberal economic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourists, workers, and business owners from diverse cultural backgrounds and social positions meet at tourism enclaves. Yet, the spatial layout of most enclaves encourages segregation instead of celebrating and benefiting from this diversity. This paper examines the genesis of enclave tourism boundaries. It proposes boundary-work as a sustainability practice to work out segregating propensities, and transform exclusionary boundaries or make them more permeable. Life story interviews in a Mexican Caribbean enclave revealed segregation's appalling consequences for workers, implicit costs for business owners, and the personal involvement of tourism actors in historical struggles over boundaries. This analysis constitutes a first step to untangle exclusionary propensities and render tourism boundaries more workable from a sustainability governance perspective. The paper explains the need for sustainable tourism research that identifies opportunities to: (1) address traumatic experiences born of discriminatory practices, (2) turn adversarial emotions between workers and business owners into productive collaborations across boundaries, and (3) challenge power asymmetries by providing tourism actors with knowledge about the physical, symbolic, and imaginary dimensions of boundaries. It concludes that the influence of any individual agent is profoundly limited; the transformation of long-standing boundaries demands a deliberate reformulation of sustainable tourism as a multi-dimensional decolonizing force. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses the sustainability priorities evident in the annual reports published between 2001/2002 and 2010/2011 of Australia's six state-museums (which represent the largest and most financially viable cultural heritage tourism organisations in the country). The study provides insight into the communication of sustainability priorities in the heritage tourism sector and offers a fine-grained understanding of what is required for such organisations to effectively manage such priorities. Based on a content analysis of the annual reports, the paper proposes a Sustainability Priorities Model for Cultural and Heritage Organisations. The Model reflects two important findings: first, that the communication of sustainability practices has emerged to play a central strategic role in the annual reporting of the leading cultural heritage organisations in Australia; second, that the conceptualisation of sustainability in the cultural heritage context has widened to include the allocation and utilisation of a wider range of resources. The Model provides a framework for cultural heritage tourism organisations to follow in order for them to effectively identify and communicate the optimal mix of sustainability practices to salient stakeholder groups. [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]

Can distinctive natural assets in tourist destinations be artistically recreated and used to improve destination image and attract more visitors? This paper analyses the formation of the tourist image based on artistically recreated local nature icons, and shows how those images can enhance the overall destination image. It focuses on the island of Lanzarote, a destination with its development based on promoting an environmental image founded on the creation of a network of multifunctional, high-quality art, culture and tourism centres exhibiting artistic recreation of its unique environmental assets. The methodology utilizes a questionnaire (n= 453) structural equations modelling approach in which the overall image of the destination is directly dependent on the image of the environmental conditions and indirectly influenced by the image of the artistically recreated centres. Results show that the destination's image is significantly grounded on the image of the art, culture and tourism centres using art based on Lanzarote's natural assets. They suggest that destinations have relevant opportunities to artistically enhance natural assets to improve their tourist image and marketing, that quality multi-functional visitor centres can be important within a sustainable tourism policy, and part of the emerging breadth of approaches taken by sustainable tourism marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning is often a central element of tourism. Tourists can learn actively, i.e. with a specific purpose, as well as passively through the comparison of values, norms and customs. It has been argued that travel supports active learning that has positive outcomes for sustainability, for instance, in the context of conservation. Yet, the complexity of active and passive learning processes and their outcomes for environmental sustainability and sustainable lifestyles remain insufficiently understood. Against this background, the paper discusses selected learning outcomes for transportation (air travel), accommodation (hotels) and activities (theme park visits). Findings suggest that “desirable” learning (defined as pro-sustainable development learning) in tourism may be very limited, while in particular, passive learning processes which redefine social norms frequently have outcomes that are largely detrimental to sustainable lifestyles. They include forms of moral licensing, the diffusion of responsibilities as well as the attenuation of the negative consequences of travel. Given the economic, social and cultural importance of tourism vís-a-vís its global implications for environmental sustainability, learning outcomes in tourism deserve to be studied in greater detail, while strategies need to be devised to enhance sustainable learning effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the capacity of the London (2012) Olympic Ambassador volunteer programmes to create a sustainable tourism legacy. It contributes to the literature on event legacies, particularly the role of volunteers promoting tourism in their home destination. Using an exploratory inductive approach, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted, in 2012 and 2013, with managers of all 11 Ambassador volunteer programmes associated with London and the 10 other regional venues that hosted London Olympic and Paralympic Games events. These show that volunteer Ambassadors enhanced tourist experiences during the Games through the Ambassadors’ pride in their home city, enthusiasm and local knowledge. However, although the Ambassador programmes had aspirations to create a sustainable legacy, in the form of a pool of experienced volunteers to support future events and further tourist visits, this was severely constrained by cuts in local government budgets. The Government Olympic Executive provided a coordinating role leading up to the Games, but neither they nor the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games provided practical assistance for legacy development. This was a missed opportunity to channel the enthusiasm of mega-event volunteers into further volunteering to promote tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

Tourism is a potential setting for encouraging sustainable behaviour. One popular mechanism is to stage events with a sustainability focus, aimed at fostering behaviour change amongst attendees. This paper reports on a study of a sustainability-focused event in Australia. The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) was used to explore if and how this event could potentially promote pro-environmental behaviour change amongst attendees. TTM provides a five-stage framework, linked to a series of 10 processes of change, with both attitudinal and behavioural dimensions. The stages comprise pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance. Findings suggest that this event attracts individuals already significantly committed to sustainable behaviour who are using the event as a source of encouragement and positive feedback for their lifestyle choices. They are not the audience that the organisers need to reach in order to achieve their aim of behaviour change on a broader scale. This event did, however, support the processes of change, particularly for those in the “action” and “maintenance” stages. This paper considers the implications of these findings and TTM as a research tool for the future promotion and marketing of these events to tourists, possible applications to tourism fairs and exhibitions, and to behavioural change in tourism generally. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper introduces and explores the psychological and social factors that both contribute to and inhibit behaviour change vis-à-vis sustainable (tourist) mobility. It is based on papers presented at theFreiburg 2012workshop. Specifically, it reviews climate change attitudes and perceptions, the psychological benefits of tourism mobilities, addictive elements of mobility and social norming effects, the attitude–behaviour gap (i.e. cognitive dissonance between understandings of, and responses to, climate change), the psychology of modal shifts, the psychology of travel speed/time and psychological explanations for the perceived importance of long distance travel. It notes that anthropogenic climate change is an inescapable reality and that tourism's share of greenhouse gas emissions appears set to rise substantially. There is little prospect of technical solutions adequately addressing this problem. The paper concludes that, while a comprehensive understanding of tourist psychology is necessary to inform policy-makers, it alone will be insufficient to achieve emission reductions, and bring tourism to a climatically sustainable pathway, if treated in isolation. Radical change in the structures of provision is also necessary. That change may take the form of infrastructure planning, including financial and economic infrastructure (e.g. taxation regimes and emission trading schemes) for sustainable mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The long-term sustainability of wildlife tourism depends on integrating visitor demands with resource management, requiring an understanding of tourist motivation. Managing the conflict between access to the animals and welfare, however, may diminish the experience for tourists. This paper identifies trade-offs tourists are willing to make between access and animal welfare, associated with feeding habituated bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.) in Monkey Mia, Western Australia. Using a choice modelling technique, we were able to determine monetary values of visitor experiences. Compared to the current guaranteed interaction with dolphins (and a daily resort entrance fee), respondents were willing to pay significantly higher hypothetical entrance fees to avoid a decrease in proximity to, or probability of, the dolphin interaction. However, negative impacts on dolphin welfare had a negative impact on visitor utility. Over 80% of visitors (n = 244) accepted management regulations resulting in decreased time with and proximity to dolphins, if those addressed welfare concerns and were communicated clearly. Thus, while visitors placed the greatest value on the proximity and predictability, they were willing to trade off these aspects if they improved dolphin welfare. We provide management suggestions based on these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores whaling and whale watching to determine the viability of their divergent practices – and explains why they coexist in some cases. Whale watching is often viewed as an ecotourism product and presented as an activity that is fast growing, holds potential for local regeneration, promotes conservation and sustainable practice and is ecological and profitable. Whaling is currently under considerable scrutiny and relies on economic and increasingly cultural rhetoric to support its viability. Contrary to some statements, it is rarely a long-established practice. The paper uses Japan and Iceland as examples to examine the sustainability frameworks and political rhetoric surrounding these activities, and asks whether whale watching might offer an alternative economy for the whaling/fishing communities in an era of conflict over sustainable resource use. The paper finds that whale watching participation grew from 9 million tourists in 2001 to 13 million in 2008, with revenues rising from $1 billion to $2.1 billion per annum over that period. Whaling relies heavily on state and private subsidies. We also find, however, that whaling and whale watching can co-exist, that both use sustainability-based rhetoric, but that global trends in public opinion and taste favour whale watching over whaling. [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 provides a critical review of the concept of "carbon neutrality" for tourism destinations within the framework of the UNWTO's Davos Declaration, a document ascribing responsibilities to various actors in the tourism industry to engage in greenhouse gas emission reductions. The paper assesses the planning frameworks of countries engaging with the concept, discusses the measures that can be taken to achieve "carbon neutrality", along with an evaluation of some of the theoretical and practical implications. An increasing number of destinations now plan to become "carbon neutral", often as a response strategy to pressure on the tourism industry to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases. They aim to mitigate their contribution to global warming, and to develop their tourism industries by enhancing their image as being environmentally pristine and sustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although sustainable tourism comprises economic, social and environmental aspects, economic analysis has been less evident in the literature. This paper takes an economic perspective to evaluate the contribution of holiday home owners to a local economy. Tourism destinations which are at the mature stages of the tourism lifecycle wish to maximise revenue from tourism while minimising costs such as overcrowding. A prime objective has to be to attract the more economically valuable tourists. In this paper an analysis of North Wexford in Ireland poses questions such as: How does the holiday home owners' expenditure in the local area compare to that of traditional tourists? Do they purchase different types of goods? What levels of local expenditure do holiday home owners engage in for the upkeep or development of their second properties? What are the implications of these findings? The results show that there are clear economic benefits for an area that people deem attractive enough to build or purchase a holiday home in. This type of tourist has a high annual spend relative to other tourists and much of this expenditure seems to be concentrated in the local area. These findings need to be incorporated into the broader debate regarding the advantages and disadvantages of holiday home owners and the possibility of them comprising a route to sustainable development for local tourist areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the approach and reasoning behind two central conceptual diagrams relating tourism and climate change. The first diagram describes a typical polarisation in tourism and climate change knowledge management. It is argued that this polarisation restricts the collective body of knowledge and obscures important causal links between tourism and climate change phenomena. Developments are proposed in a second conceptual model which counters the tendency of scientists, policymakers, the tourism industry and NGOs to polarise along two research interests by discussing climate's influence on tourism vs. tourism's influence on climate; either of which could be interpreted as a primary limitation to the sustainability of tourism. The paper places into context key perspectives in the tourism-climate change discussions, addresses the difficulty of including system feedbacks between human activity and climate interactions, and draws attention to the underlying drivers of unsustainable trends. New strategic conceptual models are advocated to support long-term non-territorial collaboration, to incorporate adaptation and mitigation in ways which are not mutually exclusive, and to address the following paradox: that the cross-section of the global population driving the demand for tourism resources threatened by climate change are also disproportionately responsible for increased radiative forcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper problematises the term ‘festival tourism’. It conceptualises festivals as socially sustaining devices and argues that while they frequently function as tourist attractions, their social significance extends far beyond tourism. Using empirical material gathered in two case study arts festivals in Ireland, the paper demonstrates how festivals can contribute to arts development by inter alia creating demand for the arts, enhancing venue infrastructures, encouraging local creativity and animating local involvement. The paper contends that arts festivals, irrespective of their initial objectives almost inevitably develop tourist profiles over time and it proceeds to examine how changing tourism priorities in the two festivals studied impact upon sustainable festival practices. The findings suggest that tourism emerged as a key force promoting festival growth and expansion. It was found to be associated with increased revenue flows but also with increased arts activity on a year-round basis and with an improved venue infrastructure in both places. However, problems were identified with respect to the quality of the relationship forged between the festivals and local populations in the respective places. The paper concludes by arguing that festivals' engagement with tourism needs to be carefully managed in the interests of promoting the socially sustaining function of festivals and of encouraging sustainable approaches to tourism development. [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]

In spite of the importance of coastal tourism for the economies of many developing countries, tourism infrastructure has often been developed without full consideration of long-term impacts on the environment. The simulation model presented in this paper aims to address critical gaps in awareness and capacity for integrated decision-making and planning in tourism infrastructure development in a developing country context. We build a simple closed-loop model of tourism infrastructure investment, which integrates typical economic, social and ecological dimensions of the problem. The model is calibrated so that within 20 years, investment projects in tourist capacity done without concomitant investment in solid waste and wastewater treatment result in a collapse of fish stocks and a sharp drop in tourist attendance. The model includes several policy options that allow users to intervene at various points in the loop, allowing stakeholders to explore how various combinations of policies perform in financial, environmental and social terms over the long period. The model can, therefore, be used as an educational tool for training and capacity-building. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOFing) as a form of sustainable tourism with particular focus on its social and cultural dimensions and the means by which deep engagement in these appear to lead participants to a better awareness or understanding of ecological sustainability issues. It draws upon a grounded theory-based exploration of the perspectives and interactions of WWOOFers and WWOOF hosts in Australia, using 323 formal written surveys of hosts and 188 surveys of WWOOFers, together with 16 in-depth unstructured WWOOFer interviews, which collectively enhances understanding of WWOOFing as an emerging, unique and valuable form of sustainable tourism. By virtue of the highly engaged and symbiotic basis of the exchange involved, WWOOFing is commonly perceived to facilitate a transcendence of the role of tourist. The research indicates this is the product of a unique relationship forged in the WWOOFing context, which differs markedly to relationships forged in more typical fee-for-service tourism contexts in which there is a different relationship at play between power, authenticity and sustainability. This relationship is outlined in order to articulate the notion that WWOOFing represents a type of “sustainability tourism” that is unexplored in the sustainable tourism literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper has twin but related objectives. It examines the origins of the concept of theme villages in creating new rural tourism experiences and explores issues in the implementation of the concept. It also discusses the role of community involvement in theme village development, probing and testing existing models of local participation in tourism development in the context of five thematic villages in Poland. The five-year research project based on participatory action research covered the entire process of forming thematic rural tourist products. Five years later its effectiveness and sustainability was measured by a follow-up study. As a result, a seven-step community-created sustainable rural tourism development model is proposed. Local involvement in creating thematic villages is much more intensive and has such a wide scope that one cannot speak of facilitating or involving a community in the development process, but rather of tourism development creation by local communities. However, the social focus and inward-oriented perspective of community tourism can hamper effective adaptation of local resources to suit market needs and thus prevent the sustainable growth of community linked rural tourism. Expert external assistance may be necessary at key stages, especially by providing professional knowledge of markets and marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community participation has long been viewed as an important tenet of tourism planning, and there is general consensus among researchers that engaging all stakeholder groups contributes to tourism sustainability. However, there are gaps in the literature, and challenges in practice, that call for further research. Among these are the dynamics of heterogeneous community groups and that not all community subgroups have equal opportunity to participate in tourism planning. This paper attempts to advance community participation by drawing on progressive approaches to stakeholder theory in the management field and by exploring, for the first time, the engagement of immigrants in tourism planning as fringe stakeholders, representative of present and future community dynamics. Bringing first generation immigrants as an important but less studied segment within the broader host community into focus moves tourism planning toward a more inclusive approach to community engagement, reflecting increased diversity and change in host communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jamaican tourism industry is very climate sensitive, and, like most Caribbean islands, Jamaica's main tourism product is coastal, centered on "sun, sea and sand". The island is susceptible to many risks posed by climate change, including sea level rise and extreme events, with resultant impacts such as beach erosion, flooding, saline intrusion into aquifers and general coastal degradation. This paper evaluates the relative vulnerability of beach versus non-beach tourism in Jamaica, using 43 pre-determined literature-linked indicators. These comprise bio-geophysical, social, technological, economical, technological and institutional factors. Four case areas are assessed using multi-criteria decision analysis to derive vulnerability scores for each area. The study finds that non-beach tourism operations should not be automatically perceived as less vulnerable than beach-based operations. Sustainable adaptation options are complex and numerous, and overall beach tourism businesses have better insurance, emergency savings, disaster plans and backup power facilities, among others. They also have the advantage of being in business longer than the inland resorts, a firmer business structure and an extensive marketing budget. In the long term, better adaptation and planning by inland businesses could change this balance. [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]