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Tourism Promotes Local Sustainable Development

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Tourism, Culture, and Heritage".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2026 | Viewed by 49

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Faculty of Tourism Studies-TURISTICA, University of Primorska, Portorož, Slovenia
Interests: tourism entrepreneurship; quality and service management; food & beverage management; hospitality and hotel management; sustainable development in tourism

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Tourism has long been recognised as a powerful driver of local economic growth, cultural exchange, and community well-being. At the same time, it faces growing challenges linked to sustainability, climate change, and rapid societal transformations. Ongoing digitalisation and the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) are further transforming tourism operations, service quality, and destination management, creating both opportunities and risks for sustainable local development. These changes also highlight the need to adapt or even transform traditional business models in order to ensure long-term resilience, competitiveness, and sustainability. Ensuring that tourism contributes positively to local communities, therefore, requires innovative approaches that integrate economic viability, social responsibility, cultural heritage preservation, and environmental stewardship.

This Special Issue aims to advance knowledge on how tourism can foster local sustainable development in a rapidly changing world. We invite contributions that explore theoretical, methodological, and practical perspectives, addressing how tourism interacts with social, economic, technological, and environmental dimensions of sustainability. This Special Issue seeks to provide both scholarly insights and practical recommendations for advancing sustainable and responsible tourism.

We welcome original research articles and reviews using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-method approaches. Comparative, interdisciplinary, and practice-oriented studies are particularly encouraged.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Tourism entrepreneurship and local development.
  • Sustainable practices in hospitality and F&B Management.
  • Governance, policy, and community engagement in tourism.
  • Cultural heritage and sustainable destination management.
  • Environmental impacts and innovations for sustainability.
  • The role of digital transformation and AI in shaping sustainable tourism development.

We look forward to receiving your valuable contributions.

Dr. Marko Kukanja
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable tourism
  • local development
  • tourism entrepreneurship
  • destination management
  • hospitality, gastronomy, and food & beverage management
  • business model innovation
  • digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI)

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Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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