Sustainable Tourism: Trends, Challenges and Concerns

Abstract

Tourism is a fundamental part of society, and is therefore embedded within contemporary capitalism and social values (Bramwell & Lane, 2014). Recently, tourism research following the general trend across social sciences has been affected by a “critical turn” (Bramwell & Lane, 2014; Tribe, 2008, 2010). The focus is on challenging established thinking and questioning the concepts of power and product (Tribe, 2006). Also, the critical turn aims to counterbalance the almost “tyrannical role of economics”, which only considers tourism as an economic activity (Tribe, 2006, p. 366). In fact, the established mindset underpinning tourism planning, development and research is increasingly under attack from many quarters on the grounds that “business as usual” seems impossible to reconcile with “sustainability”. (Dwyer, 2018). The concept of “sustainability” began with the document Our Common Future (WCED, 1987) in which sustainable development was defined as “satisfying the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (WCED, 1987, ch. 2, sec. 1, para. 1). By now, we can all understand the contradiction and ambiguity of joining the terms, since the term “sustainable” implies some form of limits while the term “development” emphasises human use to meet human needs (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018). Due to this ambiguity, the concept of sustainability has been very malleable in the interests of those benefiting from a status quo strategy (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018). Nonetheless, and according to OECD (2018), sustained development of the tourism sector will depend on the ability to adapt to emerging economic, social, political, environmental and technological trends. However, the use of tourism’s potential as an engine for sustainable and inclusive growth needs adequate policies, integrated strategies, inter-ministerial structures and mechanisms that involve the private sector and other stakeholders in tourism governance. In fact, over the past few decades, we have witnessed a growing recognition of the important role that the development, management and promotion of local destinations play, supported by regional or local structures and funding, and the preparation and execution of destination management plans. This special issue aims to capture new ways of thinking about tourism sustainability in national, regional and local contexts and how it affects other areas of society. This will help to evaluate different potential developments and make suggestions about future creative needs in the tourism sector. By taking an applied approach to tourism sustainability, this special journal issue focuses on understanding new trends and topics that need further inquiry. We hope that we have contributed to a better understanding of how tourism sustainability is conceptualised and how tourism managers and stakeholders can operationalise tourism sustainability under a global–local perspective. As such, paper contributions to this special journal issue attempt to bridge the global and the local through sustainable tourism by focusing on new or understudied phenomena, through a set of different contributions and approaches. In the first contribution, Dolores Gallardo-Vázquez, Oscar Ernesto Hernández-Ponce and Luis Enrique Valdez Juárez present an analysis of the success factors of sustainable tourism in the southern region of the State of Sonora, Mexico, supported by multiple case studies of tourist places in Guaymas, Isla Huivulai and Alamos. Based on a non-experimental qualitative approach, the authors aimed to provide a framework for the development of an empirical database. The authors demonstrate that the most relevant factors considered for a sustainable tourism project to be successful in the research areas are natural and cultural beauties, accessibility to the market and the business profile. On the other hand, the factors of secondary importance for the success of a sustainable tourism project appear to be safety, accessibility to the place and protection of the environment. The paper provides useful insights for the various stakeholders involved, namely entrepreneurs, managers and government. Sami El Geneidy and Stefan Baumeister conducted a detailed analysis of volunteer tourists from an Indian non-governmental organisation. The authors introduce an original focus on the impact on global greenhouse emissions by international volunteer tourists, by showing that