“I recycle,I turn out the lights”: understanding the everyday sustainability practices of backpackers

As holidays merge more intimately with the everyday lives of an increasing number of people, questions of sustainability in tourism contexts become ever more urgent. Using the concept of everyday practices, in which sustainability is thought to emerge in the routines of people going about their day-to-day lives, this mixed-method study aimed to understand how sustainability figures in the practices, of backpackers. Findings revealed sustainability to be of minimal concern to most backpackers who nevertheless performed a range of sustainable practices but unintentionally. Environmental sustainability was practised via reduced resource consumption and waste, economic sustainability by working and spending more money overall than other tourist types, and social sustainability through demonstrating cultural respect and community participation. The main factors encouraging sustainable practices amongst backpackers were their low-budget focus and their use as a labour source by industries that require temporary and flexible workers. When backpackers were employed, each facet of sustainability became mutually reinforcing. The results of this study are in contrast to usual perceptions of tourism as a time in which norms of sustainable behaviour are suspended, as backpacking was found to provide opportunities for the performance of more sustainable practices compared to home.     

Everyday climate discourses and sustainable tourism

Debates surrounding the human impact on climate change have, in recent years, proliferated in political, academic, and public rhetoric. Such debates have also played out in the context of tourism research (e.g. extent to which anthropogenic climate change exists; public understanding in relation to climate change and tourism). Taking these debates as its point of departure, whilst also adopting a post-structuralist position, this paper offers a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis of comments to an online BBC news article concerning climate change. Our analysis finds three key ways responsibility is mitigated through climate change talk: scepticism towards the scientific evidence surrounding climate change; placing responsibility on the “distant other” through a nationalistic discourse; and presenting CO₂ as “plant food”. The implications of these ways of thinking about climate change are discussed with a focus on how this translates into action related to the sustainability of tourism behaviours. In doing so, it concludes that a deeper understanding of everyday climate talk is essential if the tourism sector is to move towards more sustainable forms of consumption.     

An integrative framework for sustainability evaluation in tourism: applying the framework to tourism product development in Finnish Lapland

The adoption of sustainable practices has become widespread in tourism and has led to the proliferation of sustainability evaluation tools. They focus mainly on measuring outcomes, making scientific expertise an essential part of evaluations. This study argues that involving stakeholders throughout the evaluation process is essential if evaluation is to play a role in promoting the necessary understanding of sustainability to address the ecological and social concerns within a tourism setting. Drawing upon multi-stakeholder thinking, ethics, the Bellagio Principles and action research, this paper introduces a theoretical and methodological framework for engaging tourism organisations in collaboration with stakeholders in planning and implementing sustainability evaluations. The application of the framework is illustrated using a study of tourism product development, involving a group of eight craft-based entrepreneurs and their stakeholders in Finnish Lapland. A focus is placed on using ethical theories to promote dialogue and critical reflection and to expose the plurality of moral orientations behind the multiple views of sustainable tourism. Through discourse analysis, four moral discourses, ethical egoism, utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics, are constructed and examined. The paper shows how each influences the various ways in which stakeholders perceive sustainable tourism and the practical outcomes of the process.     

Tracking the concept of sustainability in Australian tourism policy and planning documents

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.     

Geopolitical encounters of tourism: A conceptual approach

This article presents a conceptual framework for examining the tourism encounter as a geopolitical encounter. In establishing this framework, we identify the theoretical intersection of tourism, geopolitics, and encounter in order to conceptualize how experience reflects and shapes power relations at national, regional, and global scales. We examine three dimensions—long central to tourism analysis—of the geopolitical tourism encounter: temporal encounters, bodily encounters and identity encounters. In doing so, we demonstrate the significance of tourism in the everyday dimensions of geopolitical discourse and practice. This article offers a critical lens through which scholars can theorize the geopolitical drivers and implications of the tourism encounter.     

Governance for sustainable tourism: a comparison of international and Dutch visions

This study focuses on the role of public authorities in the governance of tourism for sustainable development at national level. Departing from an overview of international recommendations, it analyses whether those recommendations are reflected in the way public authorities influence domestic tourism in the Netherlands. The conclusion is drawn that, currently, the internationally recommended horizontal and vertical coordination of public authorities and their policies is missing. This is largely due to a design approach that follows from neo-liberal principles of governance, as opposed to the sustainability performance of the tourism sector. The paper then discusses the results of a survey carried out to map the extent to which Dutch tourism stakeholders would be in favor of adopting measures to improve coordination. It is concluded that, although there is support for more coordination, there is no converging vision on how specific aspects of it should be best organized. The paper highlights the need for multi-stakeholder debates that should consider the links between governance features and the sustainability performance of tourism.     

The Margins of Texel

This paper analyses the sustainable development of tourism on the island of Texel, The Netherlands. It utilises the so-called 'corporate response model to the macro-marketing environment' to conceptualise the multi-dimensionality of the sustainability concept. This model differentiates among four 'margins' within which a tourism region operates. These margins are 'profit', 'risk', 'ecological' and 'socio-cultural'. The paper discusses a number of issues that are particularly relevant to the sustainable development of tourism. These include economic over-reliance on tourism, environmental management, land use conflicts and liveability. These issues are positioned at the interface between adjoining margins, and they represent spatial practices, conceptualisations of these practices as well as struggles over the symbolic construction of Texel. The analysis also reveals some existing strategies for sustainable development of tourism that are transferable to other regions. Although the case of Texel presents interesting practices and strategies of sustainable tourism, the overall balance in terms of results is still meagre.     

Cultural sustainability and fluidity in Bhutan's traditional festivals

Abstract

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.     

Perception and reality of managing sustainable coastal tourism in emerging destinations: the case of Sihanoukville,Cambodia

The emergence of Sihanoukville as a coastal destination came at the time when the global community was calling for sustainable practices. As one of the newly emergent coastal resorts in Asia, Sihanoukville has the advantage of learning from other, less sustainable Asian destinations. The Cambodian Government has partnered with international agencies in drawing up programs and incorporating practices to make the destination more sustainable. This research seeks to better understand the effectiveness and success, or otherwise, of implementing sustainability programs for tourism development, especially for an Asian coastal destination. The aim is to compare the sustainability practice outcomes according to differing stakeholders and their perceptions of sustainability. The research identifies gaps between policies and their implementation where the intent is to highlight those aspects of contemporary resort growth that need greater attention by policy makers and planners. Generally, it was found that there was alignment between the perceptions and the reality of sustainable tourism practices within and across the stakeholder groups. Where notable differences in perception arose, it was often linked to the group's mission or self-interest that influenced the views of these stakeholders. The research also points to the challenges ahead for all stakeholders in managing coastal destinations sustainably.     

An ecologically and socially inclusive model of agritourism to support smallholder livelihoods in the South Pacific

The neglect and marginalisation of smallholders in economic and development policy contributes to increasing vulnerability of rural communities. Underinvestment in agriculture, climate change impacts and growing competition for land and water places further pressure on smallholders. In this context, this paper examines the current focus in the South Pacific on strengthening the linkages between tourism and agriculture through agritourism. The paper seeks to merge multiple discourses, by firstly reviewing the development model that is driving tourism and linkages to agriculture in the South Pacific. Secondly, agritourism as it is conceptualised in the tourism literature and thirdly sustainable tourism discourse, to identify economic activities within agritourism that contribute to enhancing smallholders’ livelihoods in the South Pacific. An ecologically and socially inclusive model of agritourism is put forward based on principles of sustainable tourism and agroecology – referred to as agroecological tourism. Agroecological tourism strengthens the linkages between tourism and agriculture while fostering sustainability principles.     

Boundary-work and sustainability in tourism enclaves

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.     

Reducing tourism's threats to biodiversity: effects of a voluntary sustainability standard and training program on 106 Latin American hotels,lodges and guesthouses

The tourism industry can negatively affect wildlife, plants and natural ecosystems through habitat destruction, pollution, over-exploitation of natural resources and visitor impacts to sensitive ecosystems. One approach to mitigate such threats is the application of voluntary sustainability standards, supported by training of tourism enterprises and verified by external audits. The Rainforest Alliance standard defines 78 criteria (requirements) for sustainable environmental, social and business practices, and has been adopted by over 600 tourism enterprises – including hotels, lodges and tour boats – in 12 countries. We examined the performance of 106 hotels in six Latin American countries against 29 of the sustainable tourism criteria most directly related to biodiversity conservation. Independent audits were used to assess hotel performance at baseline followed by a repeat assessment after training, about two years later. Mean conformance with the 29 biodiversity criteria increased significantly during this interval, from 44% to 58%. Improvements were greatest for businesses in the lowest third of performance at baseline (laggards) and smallest for hotels in the highest third (leaders). The results indicate that a voluntary sustainability standard and training program can serve both to recognize existing good actors and to drive incremental improvement in enterprises that were previously less sustainable.     

Establishing academic leadership praxis in sustainable tourism: lessons from the past and bridges to the future

Abstract

This paper examines the potential contribution of academics working in the sustainable tourism arena from a relational, practice-based leadership perspective. It argues that these leadership perspectives require a shift in thinking from narrowly defined, instrumental measures of academic impact imposed by performance management and the somewhat heroic ideals of leadership. Instead it outlines how everyday practice that directly influences collaborative agency among multiple tourism stakeholders is able to provide a more useful direction. To illustrate this perspective, it engages in retrospective reflection, drawing on a number of pioneers in tourism scholarship. It specifically examines their praxis of dialogue, stewardship, and critical reflexivity and the ways in which these may serve to inspire future sustainable tourism education and scholarship.     

Conceptualising overtourism: A sustainability approach

This paper conceptualises a new tourism phenomenon: overtourism. Conceptualisation is based on relevant tourism knowledge on sustainability and related responsibility. The proposed model, presented in concise pictorial form, brings together the tourism capacities of the ‘sustainability pillars’ as well as the novel ‘socio-psychological’ and ‘socio-political’ capacities. Ultimately, the model may assist in monitoring, diagnosing and influencing the risks of any unsustainable tourism situation. The proposed novel capacities add to growing academic call to revisit the contemporary academic and practical approaches to tourism and sustainability, based on its low efficacy in practice. Paper suggests to extend and update the existing sustainable tourism paradigm to encourage more sustainable tourism strategies, policies and their more effective implementation.     

Business attitudes to sustainable tourism: Self‐regulation in the UK outgoing tourism industry

Much debate about sustainable tourism has focused on how to change business practices which lead to environmental and social damage in tourist destinations. There is much disagreement between campaigners, who wish to make industry more responsible for sustainable tourism, and companies, which fear regulations may damage business performance. Many companies have adopted their own practices of sustainable tourism. Yet these are sometimes criticised by campaigners for being superficial. This paper describes research undertaken to list current practices of self‐regulation adopted by the UK outgoing tourism industry, and to identify how far these satisfy principles of sustainable tourism identified by campaigners. The research also identified perceived obstacles to the adoption of sustainable practices, and how practices could operate in the commercial favour of companies. Results indicated that many companies saw sustainable tourism practices to be of commercial benefit; in particular, they could add value to holiday products, thus allowing companies to compete with each other on more than price alone. However, most sectors of the industry said that host governments, rather than they, were ultimately responsible for sustainable tourism. The survey therefore concluded that the industry was in favour of long‐term regulation, but this was not being achieved by current self‐regulation. A better understanding of the commercial opportunities of sustainable tourism may enable companies to take a more proactive role in seeking change.     

The Triple Bottom Line: A Framework for Sustainable Tourism Development

This conceptual article proposes that tourism development organizations adopt a triple bottom line (TBL) framework to enhance their sustainability. The TBL is a philosophical orientation whereby organizations develop and implement not just a traditional economically sustainable strategy, but also explicitly include environmental and social sustainability strategies. The history of TBL and its application to sustainable tourism development are offered and the development of a much-needed measurement instrument is described and the instrument is presented for discussion. The article concludes by presenting the benefits that can accrue to a sustainable tourism development organization through the adoption of a TBL philosophy and the use of a reliable instrument to measure TBL performance.     

Self-identification of ecotourists

Although ecotourism has frequently been examined in the literature, a consensus has not yet been reached globally as to what constitutes ecotourism. This paper suggests an alternative to the continuing debates among tourism researchers regarding their own views on what ecotourism should be and on who ecotourists are. Instead, this paper contends that tourists’ own self-interpretations of ecotourism and self-identification of ecotourists may be a more meaningful and practical way forward. This study examines the ecotourism market for West Virginia by applying this self-identification approach. The results indicate that 39.4% of respondents knew about the term “ecotourism”, and that 22.2% or 12.0 million of the state's visitors in 2008 were ecotourists. By comparison to non-ecotourists, these self-identified ecotourists were found to be more environmentally concerned and responsible, more dedicated to nature, more supportive of tourism accreditation programs, and more likely to patronize businesses with good environmental practices, even at a higher cost. This has significant implications for sustainable tourism development in the state as these findings can help to convince tourism operators who may see the potential benefits through being involved in a certification program proposed by West Virginia Department of Protection. Research limitations and future research needs are discussed.     

Facilitating sustainable tourism by endogenization: China as exemplar

To make contemporary Anglo-Western sustainable tourism discourse more responsive to non-Western contexts, we augment the generic content of the enlightened mass tourism model with crucial endogenous injections, using China as exemplar. Han Chinese cultural values as input are summarized as harmony in all things toward creative transformation through parameters of collectivism, face, guanxi, self-cultivation, and embrace of opposites. Endogenous output considers the policy and power structure for achieving sustainability-related outcomes, in this instance for the better life of people, poverty alleviation and ecological civilization as embodied in the authoritative Report to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The outcome is “endogenized” enlightened mass tourism as a framework more widely conducive to sustainability engagement in non-Western destinations.     

Tracing the consent,adaptation and resistance practices of an ‘unsustainable’ workforce: The governmentality of workplaces in tourism industry

This study takes a Foucauldian approach to neoliberal governmentality to analyze the multi-layered power relations at the tourism workplaces and the practices of subjection of employees to the industry's working conditions. It focuses on the neglected question of how tourism employees can continue working despite problems with their working conditions. Field research was conducted through semi-structured interviews with tourism workers in Alanya, one of Turkey's most important tourism cities, to reveal traces of employees' consent-adaptation-resistance practices in their everyday lives. The findings show that individuals are subjects in a multilayered power relationship. This subjection frames adaptation and resistance practices and reproduces unsustainable conditions within tourism workplaces. The findings offer critical insights into working conditions in the neoliberalized tourism workplaces dominated by Kafkaesque bureaucracy. The study encourages a new perspective highlighting the necessity of further criticism to promote decent work.     

Food,place and authenticity: local food and the sustainable tourism experience

In recent years, attempts to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of both tourism and agriculture have been linked to the development of “alternative” food networks and a renewed enthusiasm for food products that are perceived to be traditional and local. This paper draws on research from two UK regions, the Lake District and Exmoor, to argue that local food can play an important role in the sustainable tourism experience because it appeals to the visitor's desire for authenticity within the holiday experience. Using evidence from qualitative interviews with tourists and food producers, the paper records ways in which local foods are conceptualised as “authentic” products that symbolise the place and culture of the destination. By engaging with debates surrounding the meaning of locality and authenticity, the paper challenges existing understandings of these concepts and offers a new way forward for tourism research by arguing that “local food” has the potential to enhance the visitor experience by connecting consumers to the region and its perceived culture and heritage.