Sustainable Development of Tourism: Research and Policy Challenges

Substantial conceptual and empirical challenges face tourism researchers, practitioners and policy makers in articulating the concept of sustainable development and in formulating strategies to achieve and maintain sustainable development of the tourism industry. These challenges include better understanding of the dynamics of the sustainability concept and its essential interconnection with human well-being; better appreciation of the complex nature of well-being pertaining to present and future generations of destination residents; improved understanding of the role played by changing quantities and qualities of capital stocks in well-being transmission; and the extent to which capital stocks are substitutable for each other. Addressing these challenges can inform useful directions for future research on theory and good practice in the area of sustainable tourism development.