From ‘sustainable tourism’ to ‘sustainability transitions in tourism’?

05/31/24 • 34 min

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.2299832Abstract

Although sustainable tourism research is a rich and diverse field, it still suffers from a few important shortcomings. Negligible attention has been given to various possible pathways to sustainable tourism (as opposed to sustainable tourism as a ‘goalpost’) and there is an insufficient understanding of how the interconnections and interdependencies within tourism as a complex system shape the pursuit of sustainability. What is therefore needed is a sharper focus on the actual processes that must unfold for a transition to sustainable tourism to take place, and a better conceptualisation of the tourism industry as a multi-actor and multi-dimensional socio-technical system. We argue here that the sustainability transitions agenda, which has developed over the last two decades at the interface of innovation studies, evolutionary economics, studies of technology and science, and various other fields, offers a promising way forward for the desired pathway towards sustainable tourism to be comprehensively understood and more effectively followed. In order to set the scene for the individual contributions to this collection, we elaborate on this argument by highlighting the key strengths of the sustainability transitions agenda and identifying their potential to help tourism scholars move the work on sustainable tourism in new, unprecedented, and imperative directions. Our overarching aim is to lay the foundations for bridging the gap between (sustainable) tourism research and the sustainability transitions literature to move this combined agenda forward.

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https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.2299832Abstract

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

The ‘awkward’ geopolitics of tourism in China’s ‘Arctic’ village

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.2286304

Abstract

Based on the case study of the ‘Arctic’ Village (Mohe, China), a popular tourist site renowned as China’s northernmost point and the best Chinese site to view the northern lights, this article investigates China’s ‘indigenising’ Arctic tourism that transcends conventional geographical boundaries of the Arctic Circle. It introduces ‘awkwardness’ as an empirical affect and an analytical concept to chart the way the village’s tourism practices and perceptions reinforce, challenge, and diverge from the state-centred account of China’s Arctic aspirations and re-territorialising efforts. Under the framework of an ‘awkward’ geopolitics of tourism, three interrelated types of awkwardness are analysed: embodied awkwardness, identity awkwardness, and demonstrative awkwardness. Each concerns a distinct geopolitical facet of village tourism at the spatialities of the body, village, and museum. The main argument is that affective experience not only mediates geopolitical power in tourism practices but also conceptually reconfigures the nexus between tourism and geopolitics across multiple scales. Incorporating awkwardness into tourism studies advances affective tourism and tourism geopolitics by offering an affective lens to reconceptualise contradictions, ruptures, and ambiguities inherent in associating geopolitics with mundane tourism practices and perceptions.

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Next Episode

Opening Pandora’s box: the making of cannabis tourism in Thailand

https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2024.2325941

Abstract

In 2022, Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalize the possession of cannabis. Despite the government’s unwillingness to legalize recreational cannabis or promote cannabis tourism, a recreational cannabis industry fueled by tourism quickly emerged on a large scale in just a few months after decriminalization. Through the tourism worldmaking theory, the article seeks to show how cannabis tourism has taken shape in a semi-legal context following the decriminalization of cannabis in Thailand. Through a qualitative methodology combining document analysis, semi-structured interviews, and active participant observation, it is shown that following legislative changes, a recreational tourism industry has rapidly developed alongside the medical cannabis industry in which an array of cannabis products and services for tourists have emerged in the country’s major tourist destinations, transforming the tourism landscape of these places. Cannabis tourism has grown rapidly despite legal restrictions and government rhetoric aimed at preventing recreational cannabis tourism. The article aims to show that after opening Pandora’s box through the decriminalization of cannabis, cannabis tourism has developed on its own where many market-driven actors capitalized on this new economic opportunity following years of loss of income due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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