Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to invite submissions to a Special Issue of Sustainability focusing on ‘Niche Forms of Tourism’. The scale and reach of tourism as a global phenomenon has now left only a few places untouched. Tourist demand for a progressively diverse range of experiences continues to expand, stimulating the ever-increasing spectrum of niche forms of tourism. Based on the fulfilment of special interests, niche tourism is an important tool for destinations seeking to create, diversify or extend the market appeal of particular places. The continuum of niche forms of tourism is increasingly broad, ranging from the near mainstream (such as gastronomy, film, and television-induced and wellbeing tourism) to more specialist interests (such as geotourism, wildlife watching, and genealogy), through to the more unusual and extreme (such as slum tourism, tornado tourism, and risk travel to dangerous places). While travel has always incorporated elements of special interest, the contemporary expansion of niche tourism encompasses a greater range of activity, attracts more people, and affects more places. 

Development of niche tourism raises critical issues for the long-term sustainable management of tourism resources, particularly those that rely on the natural environment, heritage, wildlife, and other vulnerable settings. Challenges arise too for destinations and sites that need to cope with a sudden and unplanned influx of visitors as a result of film and TV, or short-term or one-off events that cause a spike in tourist activity. In some cases, the development of specialist types of tourism needs to be properly planned to ensure tourist safety and satisfaction, and protection of resources as well as maximizing benefits to the destination through sustainable local economic activity. 

This Special Issue invites contributions that focus on this multifarious topic that primarily address: the sustainable management of niche forms of tourism; niche tourism within the context of vulnerable settings; tourism business approaches to managing niche interests in a sustainability context; and tourist behavior relating to the impacts of niche tourism.

Dr. Joanne Connell
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.

• Diversification
• Sustainable tourism
• Destination management
• Tourist behavior