Search Results (42)

This paper explores an important issue, namely rural tourism, by analyzing the supply and demand of tourism in three rural regions (Gura Humorului, Câmpulung Moldovenesc, and Dorna) in Bucovina, Suceava County, as an alternative economic development for rural areas. The statistical data on tourist traffic in the three regions of Suceava County were taken from the website of the National Institute of Statistics of Romania and analyzed over a period of 10 years (2014–2023). The analysis of the total number of tourist accommodation facilities recorded increases of over 200% in all three regions analyzed. Dynamic analysis of the accommodation capacity in operation, the number of tourists and overnight stays, and the average length of stay was carried out by calculating the absolute and relative indicators with fixed and chained base and average indicators. Despite the increase in the number of tourists and overnight stays, the average length of stay remains relatively low. The calculation of the net utilization rate of the accommodation capacity in operation shows an efficient use of the accommodation facilities in the three regions analyzed. The importance of the research and the originality of this research are closely related to understanding the dynamics of tourism in the rural regions analyzed for the formation of future strategies for sustainable rural development in Bucovina. Full article

This study explores visitor perceptions and behaviors regarding sustainable tourism in Brighton, focusing on the economic, environmental, and social dimensions of sustainability across key tourism sectors, including Destination Management Organizations (DMOs), Tour Operators (TOs) and Travel Agencies (TAs), and accommodation and transportation sectors. Using the Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism this study identifies critical areas for improvement and proposes a comprehensive model to enhance the sustainability and resilience of the city’s tourism supply chain. The findings reveal that certain stakeholders in the tourism supply chain are highly regarded for their community engagement and sustainability efforts, while others are seen as needing more focus on social responsibility and community engagement. Some areas show significant gaps in environmental sustainability, while others excel in economic performance but lack integration of environmental and social considerations. The final model integrates targeted approaches to address sustainability gaps across Statistical Framework for Measuring Sustainability of Tourism (SF-MST) scales. It emphasizes the need for community-focused initiatives and effective visitor management to enhance social and environmental sustainability. Economic aspects are addressed through partnerships aimed at promoting sustainable transport and implementing green certification practices. Additionally, the model highlights the importance of inclusive economic programs and transparency to strengthen the social and economic dimensions of sustainability. The integrated model advocates for a holistic, optimized tourism supply chain management approach, ensuring sustainable practices across all sectors. This research contributes actionable insights for policy and destination management, promoting a balanced approach to economic growth, environmental preservation, and community well-being in Brighton’s tourism landscape Full article

Fair Tourism (FT) is an emerging form of tourism in Korea. It serves as a response to the unethical and unsustainable practices of Korean tour operators by incorporating various sustainable tourism practices. Sustainable supply chain management is a vital element in the operationalization of FT, and yet, despite the increasing significance of FT, there is a dearth of research on the phenomenon. This research aims to bridge this gap by examining how practitioners define and implement FT. The current analysis is based on semi-structured interviews with 15 CEOs of FT companies. Through thematic analysis of the interviews, valuable insights into the establishment and execution of FT are uncovered. Tourism operations like FT promote positive outcomes in destination communities. The study defines FT as tourism where travelers contribute to the local economy while also promoting environmental and social sustainability. The study also examines the sustainable supply chain management operations of FT practitioners, using the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model as a framework. It is evident that FT practitioners recognize the significance of sustainable supply chain management and strive to foster a culture of mutually respectful relationships, setting them apart from traditional sustainable tourism practices. Furthermore, this article highlights how FT practitioners incorporate sustainable tourism and sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) in their programs. They achieve this by collaborating with local partners, utilizing local resources, and actively engaging with their partners within the destinations in which they operate. Full article

This study addresses a gap in the literature on how quality management practices within the food supply chain can be effectively integrated with digital technologies to enhance Food Supply Chain Sustainable Performance (FSCSP) in the hospitality and tourism sector in Egypt. Thus, a quantitative approach was employed, with data being collected through both online and in-person surveys from employees with sufficient knowledge of their hotel’s food products, food supply chain, and quality management practices in five-star hotels in Egypt. SPSS and WarpPLS-SEM techniques were used to analyze the research data. The findings showed that Food Supply Chain Quality Management (FSCQM) practices positively influence both FSCSP and Supply Chain Digital Integration (SCDI), with SCDI serving as a mediator in the relationship between FSCQM and FSCSP. This study is helpful for hospitality businesses in developing economies because it shows how important it is to combine digital innovation with strong quality management to improve operating efficiency and gain a competitive edge in terms of sustainability. This involves fostering a technology-driven culture that encourages creativity, innovation, transparency, and information-sharing among employees to ensure the successful integration of FSCQM practices with hotels’ digital competences. Full article

In recent years, sustainability has become a key focus in the global tourism and hospitality industry, with hotels increasingly adopting waste reduction strategies, resource optimization, and sustainable supply chain practices. However, the extent of adoption varies due to strategic decisions, resistance to change, and other contextual factors. This paper, grounded in a comprehensive sustainability framework, explores the Lithuanian context through a diagnostic investigation of 37 hotels in Vilnius. Employing a mixed-method approach, it aims to examine their current corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. The findings reveal that while hotels in Vilnius voluntarily adopt sustainability practices across environmental, economic, and social domains, significant gaps remain, including a lack of formal sustainability policies and limited transparency. Despite these challenges, there is a growing need to improve and adopt more structured sustainability practices, which could notably enhance the sector’s overall performance. This paper offers valuable insights for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and researchers aiming to promote sustainable development in Lithuania and beyond. Full article

This study explores the distribution of agrowellness products and services from a sustainability perspective, focusing on consumer perceptions in Slovenia’s Eastern Cohesion Region. Utilizing an empirical approach through an online survey, the research assesses how sustainable lifestyle practices influence the frequency of agrowellness goods consumption and their perceived availability. The study employs structural equation modeling (SEM) to test four hypotheses, revealing that sustainable lifestyle practices positively affect the frequency of agrowellness product usage, enhancing the perception of product availability. A critical novel contribution of the research is identifying sociodemographic factors as significant moderators of these relationships, offering more profound insights into consumer behavior. Additionally, the frequency of use mediates the link between a sustainable lifestyle and perceived availability, with gender, age, education, and the place of residence as essential moderators. The findings contribute to theory and practice, offering actionable recommendations for marketing and distribution strategies to enhance the accessibility and appeal of agrowellness products. These insights provide valuable guidance for stakeholders in agriculture, rural development, and wellness tourism, with broader implications for policy development aimed at promoting sustainable lifestyles and supporting rural economies. Full article

The development of ports for the sake of tourism is one of the key strategies in developing and strengthening a solid foundation in the tourism industry. The integration of a supply chain into port management for the purposes of tourism that is sustainable balanced can be used as a model for planning sustainable port development for tourism purposes. However, there are scarcely any studies on this topic, while plenty focus on the general concepts involved. To fill this gap, this article presents a model of a Sustainability Balanced Scorecard for ports. The author proposes a new approach to planning port development and supply chain management for tourism, particularity to provide recommendations and further our understandings of the relationships involved in the Sustainable Balanced Scorecard from the stakeholder perspective, the learning and growth perspective, the internal process perspective, the financial perspective and the environmental perspective. Using these five perspectives, the literature review identifies 56 indicators of 15 factors that can be used in the model. Therefore, this research helps to enhance and develop sustainable and efficient conditions in tourism while reducing future risks. Moreover, the research enables stakeholders to gain an understanding of and knowledge about the sustainable development and management of ports and for tourism. The insights can be applied in policy and strategy development according to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) to accommodate social movement, environmental risk and economic inequality. Full article

Addressing global food waste is a formidable challenge, requiring comprehensive efforts across the food supply chain, particularly in sectors prone to waste like HoReCa (Hotel, Restaurant, and Catering). In MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, and Exhibitions) tourism, where gastronomy is a major attraction, overlooked meal services during working meetings contribute significantly to food waste. The MagNuS (Magnitude, Nutritional value, and Sustainability) project aims to assess and address food waste during conference events at the Valencia Conference Center in Spain. This study quantifies waste, categorizes it by food groups, estimates the potential number of individuals that could be fed with discarded food, and assesses energy and nutritional values. Across three events, 104.4 kg of food waste was documented, with cereals having the highest wastage, followed by legumes, fish, and others. Acknowledging potential underestimation due to reliance on cooked values, this study suggests using residues for vermicomposting or composting as sustainable waste management alternatives. These findings have implications for future initiatives, advocating diverse strategies to minimize food waste during congress events, aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals. The MagNuS project contributes valuable insights to sustainable practices in MICE tourism, informing policies and operational decisions to reduce the environmental impact of food waste. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected smart city operations and planning. Smart cities, where digital technologies are concentrated and implemented, face new challenges in becoming sustainable from social, ecological, and economic perspectives. Using text mining methodologies of topic modeling and network analysis, this study aims to identify keywords in the field of smart cities after the pandemic and provide a future-oriented perspective on the direction of smart cities. A corpus of 1882 papers was collected from the Web of Science and Scopus databases from December 2019 to November 2022. We identified six categories of potential issues in smart cities using topic modeling: “supply chain”, “resilience”, “culture and tourism”, “population density”, “mobility”, and “zero carbon emission”. This study differs from previous research because it is a quantitative study based on text mining analysis and deals with smart cities, given the prevalence of COVID-19. This study also provides insights into the development of smart city policies and strategies to improve urban resilience during the pandemic by anticipating and addressing related issues. The findings of this study will assist researchers, policymakers, and planners in developing smart city strategies and decision-making in socioeconomic, environmental, and technological areas. Full article

The travel-goods industry is an essential part of the larger travel and tourism sector, but it allegedly creates significant environmental impacts due to resource and energy consumption. This study investigates the potential of the product-service system (PSS) models to promote the transition to a sustainable travel industry in the future. It explores the drivers and barriers to PSS adoption within the luggage industry from a theoretical perspective and identifies opportunities for value creation using both consumer and luggage industry viewpoints. Four hypothetical PSS models are developed to highlight different pathways to PSS adoption, underpinned with empirical data collected via a consumer survey and semi-structured interviews with industry experts. Even though the analysis revealed shifting consumer attitudes towards servitisation concepts within the travel-goods market, at present, the widespread adoption of PSS is hindered by the fragmented nature of global supply chains and entrenched ownership values. Addressing supply chain issues in a way that empowers end-of-life systems to sustainably manage products beyond their functional obsolescence is critical. In parallel, product-oriented PSS models are more likely to increase, driven by a burgeoning resale market and supported by digital technologies, which in turn can lead to greater prospects for use-oriented PSS adoption in the long-term that would eventually promote sustainability. Full article

An integration between the principles of supply chain management in sport tourism and a sustainability-balanced scorecard leads to the development of guidance and assessment criteria for a city to be a sustainable sport tourism destination. This paper aims to present a sport tourism sustainability management model (STSM) for the development of assessment indices when selecting a city to be developed as a sport tourism city. The model consists of five perspectives, namely the financial perspective, customer perspective, internal process perspective, learning and growth perspective, and sustainability perspective. By using the Delphi technique to obtain a consensus from experts, university lecturers, independent organizations/associations, and business entities in relation to sport tourism management, the researchers define elements to assess complex perspectives for the sustainable development of sport tourism. The results show that there are five perspectives and eighteen elements in relation to the sustainable development of sport tourism. All perspectives and elements have a high consensus, as measured by Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance (W), of 0.488. To validate the model, the researchers examined the correlation among the five perspectives using a structural equation model and found that both the absolute fit and the incremental fit are satisfactory. As the model aligns and explains empirical data, it can support decision making for management teams, be used to effectively and efficiently draft a strategy for sustainable development in sport tourism, and improve the livelihoods of residents. Full article

In Italy, as in the rest of the world, the COVID-19 pandemic had an important impact on tourism. In particular, in the Abruzzo region, there was a decrease of circa 60% in tourist arrivals from 2019 to 2021. A driving force for the recovery of the tourism sector may be investment in sustainability activities, especially those connected to social aspects, which appear to be less considered. Social sustainability can be investigated through the Social Life Cycle Assessment methodology, thus allowing the assessment of the social risks that are connected to the life cycle of a delivered service. This study aims at providing a social footprint of the supply chain of one overnight stay at an accommodation facility using the Social Hotspot Database. The main results show that electricity consumption has the greatest impact within the life cycle, and it is the “Health and Safety” category that is the most influenced, followed by “Labour Rights and Decent Work”, “Governance” and “Human Rights”. Finally, at a subcategory level, “Occupational Toxics and Hazards” is the most influenced one, followed by “Occupational Injuries and Deaths”, “High Conflict”, “Corruption” and “Legal System”. These findings allow us to understand the overall main social risks related to the sector in Italy, since the assessment of the foreground system was conducted at a country and a sector level. Full article

The deployment of Blockchain technology in the tourism industry is already becoming a reality with the gradual emergence of innovative business models. At its core is the promise of improving the efficiency of the tourism service value chain and enhancing the quality of the service provided to the end customer. This paper analyses research trends focused on using Blockchain technology in tourism. The aim is to determine how this technology impacts the tourism sector and its sustainability. A systematic review, descriptive bibliometric analysis, and network analysis based on co-authorship, co-citation, and keyword analysis criteria, among others, have been used. The results reveal that the subject matter analysed is generating a growing trend in academic research in the fields of sustainable management and supply chain efficiency. The activities in the tourism sector that are incorporating this technology to a greater extent are those related to the areas of marketing, logistics, and smart business models, according to the data extracted from the analysis. This technology already enables the application of solutions that predict and promote tourist behaviour based on sustainable behaviour and consumption habits, generating value for the different stakeholders. Full article

The paper illustrates how the recovery and valorisation of protected natural areas can constitute, for the local communities of small inland areas in Italy, a flywheel of sustainable development with beneficial effects for the entire ‘country system’. Through a SWOT analysis and having selected the indicators for the chosen territory, which is the Roccamonfina Volcanic Area and Garigliano Mouth Regional Natural Park in the Campania Region, the characteristics of the area were highlighted as well as all the municipalities that contribute to defining the park area. The methodology adopted was chosen to identify a sample area whose peculiarities are applied and scalable to other contexts with similar conditions. The paper aims to contribute to the debate on the valorisation of protected areas in Southern Italy to promote the enhancement of production potential in sectors such as enhancing ecological quality, agricultural supply chains and projects linked to tourism sustainability. Promoting the role of agriculture, through the valorisation of quality agricultural supply chains and projects linked to tourism sustainability, can contribute to the economic development of Italy’s inland areas. The authors believe that the sustainable development of southern Italy’s protected areas can take place in territories with a characteristic identity based on environmental quality, territorial cohesion and the recovery of food habits. In the absence of adequate solutions, the protected natural areas and the communities that inhabit them risk deterioration, with the consequent loss of identities—cultural, historical, territorial—that must instead be preserved, handed down and enhanced. Full article

This study focused on analyzing planning and scheduling services in the tourism industry. Because dealing with these issues necessitates consideration of several important factors and stakeholders in the tourism business, it is challenging to operate resources efficiently. The purpose of this research is to propose a novel approach that allows maximizing the profits of tourism-related service sectors while considering many real-life constraints, such as sequence-dependent travel time, tourist time windows, points of interest, and specific destination constraints. We test our mathematical model for solving first small-scale problems and then metaheuristics proposed for finding a solution for real-life size problems. Moreover, sensitivity analysis was used to analyze the case study’s worthiness when the total cost and the revenue factor were changed. A real case study from Thailand’s Khon Kaen and Kanchanaburi provinces were used to verify the proposed models. The results indicate that the proposed models can be applied to investment decisions and strategy development. Furthermore, the outputs of the proposed models (i.e., the mathematical and metaheuristics models) can be employed to enhance the sustainability of other supply chains. Full article