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Translating the Concept of Sustainability into Tourism Practice—Destination Perspectives: 2nd Edition

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

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 April 2026 | Viewed by 2079

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Tourism, University of Otago, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand
Interests: sustainability in tourism; tourism management; visitor management; nature-based tourism; destination management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Division for Management in Health and Sport Tourism, UMIT – Private University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, 6060 Hall in Tirol, Austria
Interests: destination management; nature-based tourism
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

To date, tourism research has only addressed isolated aspects and perspectives of sustainability implementation in tourism in general and in tourist destinations in particular. Although there exist discussions of conceptual, often macro-level aspects of sustainability implementation, little attention has been paid to how the concept can and should be operationalized in destination management and planning processes.

The urgent need to successfully translate sustainability efforts and insights into tourism practice is continuously growing. This Special Issue seeks to facilitate the operationalization of the concept by showcasing empirical research and case studies that demonstrate successful implementation and operationalization of sustainability. We encourage contributions that deal with sustainability implementation in tourism practice in the broadest sense to provide both conceptual and practical insights that can have long-term positive impacts on the promotion of sustainability in destination management.

For this Special Issue, we welcome original research articles and case studies which focus on implementing and translating sustainability into tourism practice. We particularly encourage practical work with innovative implications for tourism destinations and the tourism industry. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Policy, strategy, and governance perspectives; procedural challenges; stakeholders and relationality; evaluation.
  • The implementation of sustainability in the range of tourism and hospitality businesses, such as accommodation, transport, and attractions.
  • Community perspectives, including urban, rural, peripheral, and other destination contexts.
  • The implementation of sustainability in niche tourism areas, such as golf tourism, wine tourism, etc.
  • Conceptual challenges in the operationalization of sustainability.

We look forward to receiving your manuscripts.

Dr. Julia N. Albrecht
Dr. Marco Haid
Guest Editors

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

  • tourism
  • sustainability
  • sustainability implementation
  • tourism destination
  • destination governance
  • tourism policy
  • destination management

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

22 pages, 888 KiB  
Article
The Local Turn in Tourism Statistics Within the Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism 2024
by Raúl Hernández-Martín, Noemi Padrón-Fumero and Hugo Padrón-Ávila
Sustainability 2025, 17(4), 1430; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17041430 - 10 Feb 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1709
Abstract
Contemporary challenges in destination management, particularly those related to sustainability, tourism behavior, and mobility, require granular, local-scale data to inform public and private sector decisions. However, the traditional international tourism statistics standards, such as IRTS 2008 and TSA:RMF 2008, have focused on national [...] Read more.
Contemporary challenges in destination management, particularly those related to sustainability, tourism behavior, and mobility, require granular, local-scale data to inform public and private sector decisions. However, the traditional international tourism statistics standards, such as IRTS 2008 and TSA:RMF 2008, have focused on national and, to a lesser extent, regional scales, overlooking local destinations as a relevant level for the measurement and analysis of tourism. As a result, no common conceptual framework has been available for producing statistical information for local destinations, despite tourism impacts being primarily felt at this level. The endorsement by the United Nations in 2024 of the new Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism (SF-MST 2024) has addressed this gap, marking a crucial shift toward recognizing local tourism destinations within sustainability measurement. In this conceptual paper, the recent local turn within this new international statistical standard is explored. Furthermore, by comparing SF-MST 2024 with previous documents, an extended conceptual framework for tourism statistics is developed, including the spatial dimension. Finally, in this paper, the implications for the implementation of the framework in local tourism destinations are discussed. Full article
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