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AbstractThis paper presents the first empirical evaluation of Climate Perks, an employee benefit scheme designed to reduce air travel demand by offering additional paid annual leave to those travelling without flying for vacation purposes. In-depth interviews and surveys were undertaken with employers that offer Climate Perks and travellers who have claimed journey days. The findings show the value of positive action to enable sustainable consumption in contributing to catalysing and mainstreaming low-carbon travel, drawing out key themes around recruiting travellers to surface travel, sharing knowledge and know-how, recrafting temporal experiences and learning-by doing to overcome infrastructural complexities of surface travel in a mobility system presently dominated by air travel. The paper also discusses how the boundaries around personal action on climate change are shifting as employers recognise the contribution of work to the formation of personal routines. This paper thereby contributes to understanding air travel demand and explores the potential for reducing this emissions intensive practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances relational thought in tourism studies as a means for facilitating greater scrutiny of the relational matrices that have rendered possible the continuity of unjust, oppressive, and discriminatory relational patterns, particularly when these become detrimental to individuals, communities, other species, and the environment. Amid the growing determination to build more ethical, just, and sustainable futures, it contemplates whether critical scholarship has arrived at a relational turning point, whereby certain manifestations of tourism are increasingly deemed undesirable and problematic, and that transformation is needed in areas such as unsustainable growth, persistent colonial domination and racial conditioning, continued disregard for the environment, ongoing gender inequality and gender violence, and enduring injustices. The paper explains how relationality is interconnected with sustainability and critical scholarship and outlines the premise of critico-relational inquiry in the field. New conceptual vocabulary is offered to emphasise the critical vitality that can be injected into the examination of relations including: relational programming, relational reprogramming, relational hacking, meta-relational concerns, and relational thriving. Critico-relational inquiry is delineated as a viable strategy for transitioning towards sustainable alternatives, and as an integral part of future sustainability cum critical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

AbstractAs sustainable tourism advances, issues such as environmental pollution, overexploitation, and ecological imbalance have been identified alongside the effects of climate change and tourism. Thus, the literature related to sustainable tourism in emerging economies, especially in China, has grown rapidly and contributed to knowledge development in recent years. An in-depth and systematic review is required to explore research development and potential research opportunities. This paper explored 1,293 documents on Chinese sustainable tourism in the Scopus database, using indicator analysis along with scientific mapping methodologies such as VOSviewer and Gephi. It uncovered key journals, authors, and papers in relevant fields and identified four thematic clusters, namely, “government policy,” “rural and heritage tourism,” “ecotourism,” and “urban tourism.” Analyses based on Sustainable Development Goals suggested that advancements in Chinese sustainable tourism contribute positively to global efforts. Furthermore, this study outlined the pertinent themes and research areas for Chinese sustainable tourism, offering information and recommendations for future researchers and tourism practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With public concerns about fostering the inclusion of women, especially those with low socio-economic status, governments and private entities have started to develop collaborative strategies to improve women's development. One such strategy is collaborations with sharing economy entities, which are online platforms that provide entrepreneurship opportunities for individuals despite geographical and structural barriers. This paper draws on Ostrom's concept of the commons to explore how to foster the inclusion of women as entrepreneurs in the sharing economy through collaboration. Thematic analysis reveals the nature and outcomes of policies geared towards women's development. While previous studies on the sharing economy have noted that the top-down nature of its operations has resulted in individualised gains, this paper highlights the collaboration within these settings – leading to individual and mutual monetary and non-monetary benefits – stemming from a shared digital and traditional commons with context-based ideologies and stakeholder actions. This paper gives practitioners a clear understanding of how they can successfully support and create a context for women's entrepreneurship in the age of digitisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews resident tourism attitude research through the lens of the individual- and community-level perceived impacts of and responses to tourism. It explores how perceived impacts of tourism and responses to tourism development have been conceptualised and measured in the existing resident attitudes models published between 1990 and 2020. Three categories of variables were identified and used: antecedent variables, tourism impact variables, and dependent variables. The latter three categories are used to discuss the research topic from the lenses of improvements in measurement instruments. Finally, the paper suggests rethinking the overall conceptualisation of residents' perceptions of and reactions to tourism – it proposes future research directions to distinguish between individual-level and community-level effects and reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major motivation for international travel is to experience cross-cultural interactions. Such interactions may occur outside the typical travel milieus. They can even take place prior to the actual travel to impact travel intentions. This paper focuses on cross-cultural encounters between the members of a community and the diaspora from a potential host destination who live among them. The research investigates the willingness of individuals in the community to travel to the diaspora members' home country for the first time after having established relationships with them. Affect control theory and relational exchange theory are incorporated into a structural equation model to examine these relationships – focusing on natives of India living in the United States. The study identifies individual warmth and trust formed between the Indian diaspora and their American acquaintances as highly significant factors that could impact the latter's travel intentions – that is, the willingness of Americans who have not visited India to consider traveling there to further experience the Indian culture. The study provides insights into sustaining the diaspora communities' cultural identities and underscores their intuitive role as cultural ambassadors outside their countries of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractPromoting Well-being is one of United Nations’ sustainable development goals and it also attracts increasing attentions in tourism research. Based on the stereotype content model (SCM), this study examines the interaction effect of service employees’ language style and tourism activity type on tourist well-being. The mediating effects of perceived pleasure and perceived professionalism is also studied. The theoretical value of this paper is two-fold: First, it is the first study of the adaptability of tourism activities to different language styles and of how this adaptability difference affects tourist hedonia and eudaimonia. The discovery of the interaction effect between tourism activity type and language style also provides a legitimate explanation for resolving the contradiction between humour and seriousness in previous studies. Second, this study sheds new light on the stereotype content model. It introduces two new constructs—perceived pleasure and professionalism and reveals their mediation effect in the interaction effect. These constructs support affective and cognitive evaluations of social judgments. Our findings have important implications for tourism practitioners who seek to develop effective service strategies to enhance tourist well-being and thus promote sustainable tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper provides tourism companies with new solutions to enhance sustainable value creation through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), following a triple bottom line approach. We consider the driving role of workforce nationality diversity (WND) on CSR, and we highlight the role of a strategic CSR orientation as a mediator in the CSR-performance relationship. We apply the PLS-SEM technique to 202 coastal accommodations in Spain that make up the study sample. The results show a positive direct effect between WND and CSR practices. Furthermore, when accommodations integrate their CSR actions into the corporate strategy through a strategic CSR orientation, the bottom-line effects of CSR activities are enhanced. We draw useful conclusions for both managers and academics in the sector. First, we extend the traditional economic focus on WND to the analysis of its benefits for CSR. This encourages companies to take advantage of their classic diversity characteristic to improve the development of their responsible practices. Second, we highlight the need to integrate CSR actions into the core business of the company to create value and to avoid the practices of greenwashing and greenhushing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractSmall and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) within the tourism sector play crucial yet often underestimated roles in climate change mitigation, contributing to approximately half of the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions. Although the existing literature has examined barriers to climate change action and potential drivers for the involvement of small firms, these aspects have not been comprehensively explored within the context of tourism. The article addresses this gap by conducting a narrative review that analyzes 78 papers and reports published on the topic. The results substantiate a differentiation among barriers, pressures, and incentives. Barriers encompass aspects related to knowledge and personality, understanding and perceptions, management, data, finances, technology, legislation, and community. Pressures originate from costs, customer expectations, and compliance. Incentives manifest in economic considerations, subsidies, marketing strategies, staff benefits, and community advantages. The findings are synthesized into a series of conceptualizations, offering pathways for progress on mitigation. Findings emphasize the significance of legislation and efforts of destination management organizations for accelerating SME engagement with climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of hotels and their contribution to the destination depends on the development of sustainability practices. The aim of this paper is to study possible interactions between environmental, economic and social sustainability practices with each other and with hotel performance. In these interactions, hotel performance is not considered as the final dependent variable. Hotel performance may play a mediating role as it may be considered as a consequence of environmental sustainability practices and as a means for economic and social sustainability practices. From a PLS analysis using data from 365 Spanish hotels, we find that environmental sustainability practices influence hotel performance and economic and social sustainability practices; hotel performance positively influences economic and social sustainability practices; and economic sustainability practices influence social sustainability practices. Moreover, hotel performance mediates the relationship between environmental sustainability practices and the other two dimensions of sustainability practices; and economic sustainability practices mediate the link between environmental and social sustainability practices. This study has theoretical and practical implications because it shows that environmental sustainability practices contribute to hotel performance, creating value for shareholders and owners; and environmental practices and the availability of financial resources contribute to the development of economic and social sustainability practices, also creating value for other stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper ascertains how small accommodation firms can contribute to sustainability by creating shared value (CSV) through adapting their product. A sequential mixed methods approach was adopted including interviews with small accommodation providers and an online survey from domestic leisure tourists. Results demonstrate that adapting the accommodation product through implementing local food initiatives and messages positively influences guests’ sustainable behaviour through their willingness to purchase local food, resulting in value creation for various stakeholders including local community and businesses in the region. Adapting the product will also increase guests’ satisfaction with their stay, yielding economic profits for the accommodation providers. Nevertheless, fostering a supportive environment through institutional systems and inter-firm relations is crucial for CSV to function as an effective strategy for these small firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper examines contextual dynamics shaping the development of trust in the management of indigenous tourism. It focuses in particular on the role of women’s leadership in fostering community autonomy and a sense of community, which is argued to be key to building trusting relations essential to sustaining the tourism enterprise. Based on empirical fieldwork with the Pataxó Jaqueira community of Porto Seguro, Brazil involving document analysis, participant observation and interviews, the paper shows how trust, tradition and culturally embedded indigenous leadership capacities interact when seeking to develop and deliver tourism that meets community needs. The data show how investing in cultural resources builds social capital and reinforces the credibility women’s leadership, which is then leveraged to challenge patriarchal gender norms. Moreover, it identifies mechanisms of trust development and maintenance between entrepreneurial indigenous women and other community stakeholders, stressing the impacts of the women’s capacity for openness, solidarity and risk taking. The article thus provides contextualised and historically-informed, socio-cultural insights regarding the intersections of gender, trust and traditions in shaping sustainable indigenous tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractAlthough gender and sustainability have been topics of discussion in international discourse since 1980, little has been done to connect the two. While one of the United Nations Sustainable Goals UNSDGs (5) places a strong emphasis on gender equality, the sustainable tourism paradigm fails to examine it from a social perspective. This paper examines the relationships between gender, religion and tourism and makes the case for the creation of travel destinations that uphold gender equity. The research employs narrative interviews conducted with Muslim women while travelling in the UK to explore how their travel experiences are influenced by their gender and religion. This is a field work study based on in-depth interviews with 21 participants who shared their behaviour, perceptions and feelings related to their trip. The results demonstrate that gender and religion influence the views and experiences of female Muslim tourists in the UK and indicate qualities that female Muslim tourists may seek in a destination that are consistent with their Muslim identity. The results also point to some positive and transformative learning that endured after the trip. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractQuality education is one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and tourism has been identified as an effective means of learning. However, few studies have explored tourism’s role in achieving the goal of quality education (SDG 4). The Chinese government’s practice of realizing quality education through educational tourism is a case worthy of investigation. Yet collaboration between the education and tourism sectors in this country comes with challenges, which can be addressed through effective partnerships (SDG 17). Interaction among stakeholders in educational tourism has developed under the impetus of administrative power; power-based operations thus affect how stakeholders work together. This paper accordingly introduces Foucault’s power theory to explore partnerships in educational tourism in China. Three partnerships are found to drive educational tourism development: horizontal intersectoral partnerships, vertical public-sector partnerships, and public–private partnerships. We further analyze how power operates within these categories, identifying the factors that influence partnership formation and the reasons behind power imbalances. Targeted suggestions and areas for improvement are also offered with the expectation that tourism is an effective means of advancing the goal of quality education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation is pivotal to events. However, little is known about how exhibitors manage the challenge of adopting green innovation in the fast-paced and short-oriented events. Drawing upon institutional theory and organisational learning perspective, this study investigates how institutional pressures are linked to exhibitors' willingness to adopt (WTA) eco-exhibiting via two temporal variables: future orientation (mediator) and past experience (moderator). PLS-SEM is applied to analyse a survey from 685 event exhibitors. Results show that coercive and normative pressures are significantly associated with exhibitors' future orientation, which then predicts WTA. Besides, past experience moderates the relationship between institutional pressures and WTA. Specifically, experienced exhibitors learn by doing and their WTA is more associated with normative pressure, while novice exhibitors learn vicariously and their WTA links stronger to mimetic pressures. This paper integrates macro-level institutional pressures and organisational-level learning heterogeneity, offering a multi-level explanation of green innovation adoption. This research also contributes to the green events and sustainable tourism literature with novel insights from the time perspective, verifying events as pro-environmental learning spaces for exhibitors. We highlight time perspective and environmental education for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, and the special issue, seek to unpack the gendered nature of entrepreneurial pathways, specifically in relation to the role of social policies. We achieve this aim by first conceptualising gender, entrepreneurship, and social policy, to highlight the need to generate a stronger research agenda on the role of social policy within gender and tourism entrepreneurship research. We next outline an overarching framework for delineating the intersection of gender, entrepreneurship, and social policy, based on a critical review of existing studies, as well as by situating the papers in this special issue. We present this discussion through three thematic framings: (1) gender and entrepreneurship, (2) gender and social policy and (3) entrepreneurship and social policy. In conclusion, we discuss the implications for social policy and practice, and in doing so call for a research agenda that situates social policy more centrally within considerations of gender and tourism entrepreneurship. [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]

Market economies are often characterised by a failure to self-regulate. One of the most enduring of these 'market failures' is the ability to maximise the entrepreneurial potential to generate growth. Within this context, gender remains one of, and probably, the most prevalent dimension of this perceived failure to maximise entrepreneurial potential. Feminist political economy provides a starting point for understanding this reproduction of inequalities via policy interventions that have sought to address perceived market failure. This paper analyses how such gendered inequalities are reproduced. Through the critical assessment of Spain's Emprendetur funding scheme, active from 2012 to 2016, 996 applications were analysed, through a content analysis, applying a gender perspective. The findings, including a decision tree analysis, demonstrate not only that women participate less as applicants in the funding scheme but are also less successful. This can be partly explained because women apply via business typologies that are less successful in relation to the dominance of ICT and technologically informed innovations. However, the barriers extend beyond these typologies; for even when controlling for critical success factors like project size, women are less successful, experiencing a double gender gap, that underlines the need for a gender lens policy approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis study provides a methodological contribution in the analysis of tourists’ sustainable behaviour. Traditional methods encounter challenges in addressing the attitude-behaviour gap, prompting the need for new approaches. Using diverse big data sources, the paper introduces a novel methodology for analysing real behaviour patterns, extending Social Network Analysis techniques. The aim is to identify sustainable behaviours that ease overcrowding, distribute visitor flows, and optimize economic diversification. The methodology is valuable for local authorities in monitoring tourist behaviours, aiding in informed decision-making for a more sustainable approach to tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractGreen creativity (GC) serves as the cornerstone in driving green innovation. However, GC is the result of individual ideas, so motivating Gen Z employees, who are the primary employees to propose novel and practical environmental protection solutions, will in large part determine the future of hotel management. Drawing from social information processing theory and the componential model of creativity, this paper incorporates the variables of prosocial motivation, impression management motivation (IMM) and ecological reflexivity to develop a cross-level model of the impact of green organizational climate (GOC) on the GC of Gen Z employees. A total of 260 Gen Z employees from 37 four- and five-star hotels in China are empirically analyzed using HLM software. We demonstrate that GOC enhances the GC of Gen Z employees through prosocial motivation and IMM. We also find that prosocial motivation is more likely to stimulate Gen Z employees’ GC under high ecological reflexivity, but that ecological reflexivity does not moderate the relationship between IMM and GC. Our study enriches the cross-level mechanism of the impact of GOC on GC from the perspectives of “green for others” and “green for myself”. These results provide practical and cost-effective insights for sustainable hotel green development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of multiple crises, there is a pressing need to increase knowledge, skills and commitment to sustainability and climate action both amongst tourism practitioners and academics. There is an opportunity to deepen the concept of literacy in ways that not only capture operational aspects of tourism and carbon, but also embrace cultural and contextual knowledge and practices, so that the host-guest relationship is mutually enriching and contributes to regenerating destinations. This conceptual paper proposes a pathway that moves beyond building domain-specific carbon literacy to growing "Green Service Literacy" and ultimately "Regenerative Literacy." The vision of Regenerative Literacy connects to deep ecology thinking and decade-long efforts such as those proffered in the Earth Charter. Ultimately, it seeks to (re-)align our lifestyles with nature and ensure the human footprint remains within planetary boundaries. Changes across the tourism system are recommended to enable this transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recommendations are a high form of community consultation, but rarely solicited in surveys of resident attitudes despite their potential to better inform planning and foster stronger event loyalty in an era of mega-event crisis. This paper innovates by identifying and structuring open-ended recommendations for the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games from host region residents 10 years prior to that mega-event. From an online survey of 897 respondents, 946 discrete recommendations for event "success" were organised through thematic analysis into high level "event," "community" and "organiser" themes. In the emergent community vision for the Games derived from these themes, host city residents aspire for efficient, affordable, and authentic Games that benefit and involve the host community and learn from the past. The vision's focus on resident self-interest is unsurprising but challenges event organisers to accommodate the interests of multiple stakeholders. The aspiration for a sustainable community, nevertheless, is conducive to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and complements recent IOC reforms and the official 2032 Games Vision which call for greater responsiveness to host community interests. Under a framework of soft transformative governance, facilitating micro-transformations should ensure that marginalised groups are heard and their aspirations integrated into early mega-event planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing research finds inconclusive evidence of tourism benefits of designating new National Parks (NP) and UNESCO World Heritage sites (WHS). This research advances this ongoing discussion by using a randomised experiment to test causal effects of these common protected area designations on future visit intention among domestic tourists in Australia. It also tests for moderating effects exerted by tourist beliefs and advertising strategy. The study finds that NP and WHS declarations significantly increase the likelihood of visitation, but the added value of declaring a WHS above NP is insignificant on a domestic tourism market. Tourists' attitudes towards protected areas significantly moderate these effects, whereas effects related to advertising strategy are negligible. The paper makes significant contributions because it is the first in this area to: (a) use randomisation in the design to produce robust causal conclusions; (b) compare NP and WHS designations; and (c) scrutinise the role of advertising strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper presents an integrative review of how social marketing principles and practices have been conceptualised and applied in tourism studies. A systematic literature search was conducted, which found 41 relevant tourism-related journal articles published from 1971 to January 2024. Thirty-six articles self-identified as social marketing, while five studies did not self-identify as social marketing. Findings show most tourism studies conceptualise social marketing from a downstream or micro- perspective, seeking to influence behaviour change in individual tourists. Studies applying an upstream or systems perspective in tourism are rare, indicating opportunities for future research in tourism to align approaches with contemporary social marketing practice. Often theory and model use are not reported, making it challenging to identify the requisite key success factors for effective social marketing interventions. Not only are the impacts of interventions rarely documented, but they also tend to be short-term. Long-term evaluation of interventions, particularly at the macro-level, is missing. A model of social marketing application in tourism is suggested that integrates approaches across the downstream, community, upstream, and macro- levels. Implications for further utilisation of social marketing to achieve sustainable tourism are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractRural tourism has emerged as a pivotal catalyst for local economic development, particularly in emerging economies. However, sustainable rural tourism development should not solely prioritize economic outcomes but also emphasize social values. Social entrepreneurship underscores both economic and social values, presenting a viable approach to attaining sustainable development goals (SDGs) in rural areas. This study introduces the concepts of legitimacy and social capital to examine how social entrepreneurship achieves SDGs in rural tourism destinations using a case study of Mingyue village in China. The findings suggest that social enterprises establish their legitimacy by effectively navigating institutional complexity while also fostering social capital at the community level, which ultimately facilitates the transition of the community from “low legitimacy-low social capital” to “high legitimacy-high social capital.” Throughout this process, social entrepreneurship promotes individual empowerment and enhances collective efficacy, thereby contributing to achieving SDGs. In essence, this paper constructs a theoretical framework illustrating how social entrepreneurship achieves SDGs while providing valuable insights into exploring the sustainable development of rural tourism driven by such entrepreneurial endeavors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policies to reduce air travel demand, including in the tourism sector, are urgently required as air travel's climate impact keeps growing while low-carbon aviation remains a distant perspective. Policy options include flat rate taxes per flight, taxes on flight miles or emissions, or frequent flyer levies, yet little is known about how their distributional impacts compare. This paper examines the distributional effects of various air travel tax options for the UK, informed by an analysis of the distribution of (frequent) flights and associated emissions over income and other social characteristics. We find that 'frequent flights' are even more unequally distributed than all flights and that all taxes on air travel are distributionally neutral or progressive. The most progressive option is a 'frequent air miles tax' based on both the number of flights and emissions. At the same time, some social groups like recent migrants are relatively likely to be 'frequent flyers' even on lower incomes. Overall however, our results show that taxing air travel is far less regressive than taxing home energy or motor fuels. Taxes on air travel, while often portrayed as unfair in public discourses, therefore raise fewer fairness concerns than other types of carbon taxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]