Sustainable Tourism, Social and Institutional Innovation—The Paradox of Dark Sky in Astrotourism

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article recommends a topic for the academy that is both relevant and appealing. The effort put forth is commendable, but it will necessitate significant changes to the disclosed theory as well as a better understanding of the Astro tourism issue.

I hope you find the following observations helpful:

Manuscript:

1. a) To make your manuscript more discoverable, you should use keywords effectively rather than repeating the word from the title.
2. b) What is the difference between references 21 and 24 so that you should use them both?

Introduction:

1. a) Do you have justification and preliminary data other than “rural, semi-urban, or non-industrialized areas, far from large cities and away from light pollution” that make Aragon the right location for a case study on Astro tourism? Are there any statistics on the number of people who visit Aragon for Astro tourism that motivates you to conduct a study in this area?
2. b) Your explanation in Figure 1 sounds premature since you have not adequately articulated the relationship between New Institutionalism in Sociology and the centre-periphery theory. You haven't yet explained how you came up with the content/elements of your diagram. Please provide more context and justification before proceeding (lines 92-105).
3. c) I couldn't see the relationship between the subchapter title in line 106 and its contents. The use of the “heritage” word in the title doesn't represent what is discussed instead of representing the early paragraph of the Introduction. Please give some more references that are related to the “heritage” justification if you still want to use the subchapter title containing the “heritage’ word.

Methodology

1. a) People who do not know the exact location of Aragon will not understand the map you provide (Map 1) because it does not contain the word "Aragon." Because of the ambiguous location of "Aragon" on the map, it's difficult to determine the significance of the location from which your interviewees originate. Please provide more informative maps that readers of various places will recognize easier.
2. b) You'll also need to classify current informants as certain specific stakeholders and explain why you chose these people. By categorizing the informants into (different) groups, a generalization of the types of respondents needed for Astro tourism research can be obtained, which can then be replicated by other researchers in the future.
3. c) The themes of the questions you asked the informants were not explained. What if there are other researchers that wish to conduct the same study? You must explicitly state what the topics/ themes of your semi-structured interview are. Thus, the methodology can be replicated by other researchers in the future.

Results

2. a) Because you did not explain the themes of the semi-structured interviews that were conducted, the reader lost the bridge of understanding coding and categorizing shown in Table 2. In other words, it was difficult for readers to understand how the code and category were formed.
3. b) To describe and defend your opinion in Figure 2, you need to explain the basis of justification and sources cited.
4. c) You should explain the relevance and why the informant's opinion is relevant in lines 303-313, not just an unexplained quote. In other sub-chapters, you should clarify the meaning and importance of interview transcripts placed so that readers understand why you included them in the text.
5. d) In Figures 3 and 4, what sources did you use?
6. e) In Figures 5 and 6, what sources did you use? Is it based on the interview or your personal opinion? Are they results based on interviews, references, a combination of interviews and references, or something else entirely? Given the complication of the diagram you generate, you should demonstrate how it is constructed.

Discussion

I think you should use shorter sentences to make it easier and clearer understanding to the reader. For example, you can rearrange the sentences from lines 501 to 513. It’s way too difficult to enjoy paragraphs that contain many words in one sentence.

 Conclusions

You indicated in the last paragraph that you are studying tourists. Which portion demonstrates that you conducted a visitor analysis because none of the 23 informants you offer contains tourists? If you really want to include tourists in your examination of this work, you may need to include additional narrative and information.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1:

Thank you very much for your interesting recommendations and corrections, we think that thanks to them our paper has improved. We explain our answers, in relation to your comments.

In relation to the manuscript, we have changed some of the keywords to make our manuscript more discoverable. In relation to references 21 and 24, thank you, we have check them again and the second one is just a Book review for another author in relation to the Scharpf’s book. So, we have changed the reference.

In relation to the introduction, a) We have data that corroborate the case study. Specifically, Aragon highlights because of different certificates coming from Starlight Foundation. Also, it has Starlight awards and one Stellar Park. Aragon has four astronomic observatories along the territory and a number around 100,000 people per year coming because of astrotourism; b) in relation to Figure 1, thank you very much for your interesting comment. We have provided more justification of that; c) in relation to the point about subchapter title and the “heritage” concept, we must say that in this section the word heritage is used in the sense of cultural heritage which is explained by the authors referenced in references 26 through 36.

In the methodology section, a) in relation to the case study, we have added some extra information about Aragon; in relation to the informants, we have justified why we have chosen these types of informants and furthermore, we have identified the types of informants so that the research can be replicated in other areas of the world; c) in relation to the semi-structured interview, we have added the semi-structured interviews script as online document.

In the results section, a) in relation to Table 2, We have added the interviews script and we have explained the way in which we conduct this part of our research; b) in relation to Figure 2, we have explained in deep Figure 2 and we have justify all with more cites; c) in relation to the relevance of informant's opinion, thank you for the interesting comment. We have explained better the point about the transcriptions and the relevance of the interviews content, mainly following the classic approach by Strauss and Corbin (1990). In relation to figures 3,4, 5 and 6, we have explained the sources and the way in which we get to the all diagrams.

In relation to the discussion, We have lightened and reduced the length of the sentences in the discussion. And in relation to the conclusions, when we talk about tourists in the conclusion, right in the last paragraph, we are making reference to future lines of research.

Thank you very much for your comments and corrections.

Best regards,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a new sustainable segment of tourism that can be classified as a special intereste tourism. Astro-tourism is just emerging in literature and authors have made an extensive desktop research for bibiliography. They also did collect primary data in a qualitative aspect. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you very much for your comments.

Best regards,

The authors

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank for for the opportunity of reviewing this paper. It disscusses an interesting subject, but I consider that, as it is presented, the relevance and the contribution to the scientific literature is rather limited. It takes into consideration too many perspectives, without a clear methodology and research results. I recommend a more focused approach starting with the abstract, article stucture, methodology and results.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

We have improved the theoretical perspective and it is written clearly in the paper. Also, we have developed all the points about qualitative method, explaining in deep the case study about Aragon (Spain); specifically, we have adequately justified the selection of informants, the type of informants chosen and why their discourses are important. In addition, the form of analysis and how the categories, codes and themes that appear in the discourses of the relevant informants have been elaborated have been more correctly justified.

We have also clarified and deepened the analysis of the results, completing the discourses and explaining how the graphs presented have been elaborated. In the discussion, explanations have been improved and sentences have been shortened for a better understanding of the content.

Thank you very much for your comments and corrections.

Best regards,

The authors

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Minor comments:
1. It is much better if you write each source of all tables or figures, even if it is your own elaboration (eg source: author, 2022).

2. Sentence lines 563 to 565, 581, 588, 591, 595, 600,605, 631, it would be better if you mention the author's name instead of just the number "4" or the number of citations. for example: Likewise we agree with Soleimani, et. al. (4) who combined blah blah blah....

So, readers don't need to scroll down to the bibliography to find out who the "number 4" is in the middle of reading.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for your point of view

In relation to the first point,1. It is much better if you write each source of all tables or figures, even if it is your own elaboration (eg source: author, 2022), we have added authorship to all figures and tables.

In relation to second point, 2. Sentence lines 563 to 565, 581, 588, 591, 595, 600,605, 631, it would be better if you mention the author's name instead of just the number "4" or the number of citations. for example: Likewise we agree with Soleimani, et. al. (4) who combined blah blah blah.... we have added the authors, as you have indicated in the places indicated, thank you very much.

Thank you so much for your consideration,

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf