Search Results (26)

In the context of China’s “dual carbon” goals and rural revitalization strategy, scientifically assessing the carbon footprint of rural tourism is essential for promoting the sustainable development of the tourism sector. This study presents the first case analysis of the rural tourism carbon footprint in Guangdong Province, using Village B as a representative example. A tourism carbon footprint model for village B was developed using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method. Based on empirical survey data, the tourism carbon footprint of Village B in 2024 was estimated at 7731.23 t, with a per capita carbon footprint of 38.656 kg/p/a. Among the contributing sectors, transportation accounted for the largest share (85.18%), followed by catering (6.93%) and accommodation (5.10%). As an ecotourism-oriented rural destination, Village B exhibited a relatively low carbon footprint from recreational activities. To facilitate the low-carbon transition of rural tourism in the study area and accelerate progress toward the “dual carbon” targets, it is recommended to optimize public transport infrastructure, promote green mobility, enhance the energy efficiency of rural dining and accommodation, and raise awareness of low-carbon tourism. Full article

This study develops and tests an integrated structural equation model (SEM) linking Butler’s Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC), residents’ quality of life (QoL), and community participation in sustainable tourism governance (STG) across three emerging island destinations in Aceh, Indonesia. Drawing on survey data from 1266 residents, we employ confirmatory factor analysis and covariance-based SEM to (1) assess the direct effects of TALC-derived dimensions on residents’ QoL; (2) examine the influence of residents’ QoL on governance participation; and (3) evaluate both direct and indirect pathways linking TALC to STG. Rather than distinct life cycle stages, we conceptualize and measure residents’ perceptions of destination maturity based on key TALC dimensions, such as infrastructure development, tourism intensity, and institutional coordination. Results indicate that higher perceived destination maturity is positively associated with residents’ QoL (β = 0.21, p < 0.001), and that residents’ QoL strongly predicts governance participation (β = 0.31, p < 0.001). TALC dimensions also directly affect STG (β = 0.23, p < 0.001), with residents’ QoL partially mediating this relationship and accounting for 22.4% of the total effect. Multigroup SEM reveals consistent effect patterns across Weh, Pulo Aceh, and Simeulue. These findings illustrate how TALC-informed perceptions of destination maturity relate to residents’ quality of life and governance participation, suggesting that perceived well-being may play an important role in shaping community engagement in small-island tourism contexts. Full article

The competitiveness of rural tourism destinations holds significant implications not only for local livelihood sustainability and regional development but also for the preservation and continuity of human civilization. However, developing countries face a critical challenge where rural tourism destination competitiveness is being progressively undermined by the pervasive homogenization of tourism products. The existing literature demonstrates limited engagement with mitigation strategies for tourism product homogenization in examinations of rural destination competitiveness. This study conceptualizes tourism product homogenization as a manifestation of the tragedy of tourism commons, proposing that self-governance can foster rural tourism destination competitive advantages through resolving such collective action dilemmas. Employing a combined IAD-SES framework, the investigation analyzes interview data from Yuanjia Village in Shaanxi Province, China. The analysis delineates how self-governance dynamically enhances and sustains rural tourism destination competitiveness through four institutional mechanisms: provision rules, appropriation rules, monitoring protocols, and sanctioning systems. Furthermore, the findings reveal that the competitiveness driven by self-governance demonstrates the capacity to align individual interests with collective societal benefits. This research contributes to tourism scholarship by identifying novel institutional determinants of tourism destination competitiveness and proposing a policy framework for addressing product homogenization challenges throughout the rural tourism area life cycle. Full article

This paper explores the intersection of tourism and environmental theories, highlighting how sustainability serves as a critical bridge between the two disciplines. Tourism theories such as Butler’s Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) provide insights into destination development and tourist behavior but often lack an ecological perspective. The environmental framework, including Ecological Modernization Theory (EMT) and Common-Pool Resource (CPR) Theory, emphasizes sustainable resource management and the interconnectedness of human activities and natural systems. This paper examines common concepts such as carrying capacity, sustainable development, and behavioral insights while also identifying tensions between economic growth and environmental preservation. Case studies from Costa Rica, Hawaii, and Thailand illustrate practical applications of these theories in real-world settings, revealing how tourism can be both a threat and a tool for conservation. My paper concludes that integrating environmental impact assessment (EIA) and community-based tourism (CBT) models into tourism planning can lead to better long-term resource management. It recommends the adoption of stricter regulations on tourism development in fragile ecosystems, the implementation of eco-certifications, and the promotion of locally governed tourism initiatives. These strategies will ensure the sustainability of both tourism activities and the ecosystems on which they depend. Full article

This study examines the relationship between carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and gross domestic product (GDP) in the tourism industry, using annual time series data from 1955 to 2019 for Greece and 1930 to 2019 for Italy. The Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) model was used to determine the threshold point at which the tourism-induced Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) emerges in each stage of tourism, as indicated by the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) model. The existence and direction of causality between CO₂ emissions, GDP, and tourist arrivals was determined using the Toda–Yamamoto Granger causality test. The analysis emphasizes the complex relationship between economic growth, environmental degradation, and the tourism industry. The EKC hypothesis is supported by empirical findings that show a strong long-term cointegration between tourist arrivals, GDP, and CO₂ emissions. This suggests that, while tourism growth initially contributes to environmental degradation, it also fosters conditions for sustainable development as economies progress, providing critical insights for policy-makers seeking to promote environmentally sustainable tourism. Full article

The construction industry, business models, and smart cities are recognized as pivotal domains with profound implications for fostering sustainability, prompting extensive research endeavors. However, there remains a dearth of interdisciplinary integration within this sphere aimed at fostering sustainable development. Nevertheless, current studies suggest that research in this area could provide theoretical and practical guidance for the sustainable transformation of society and make a positive contribution to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, this paper aims to utilize an innovative mixed research approach combining macro-quantitative bibliometric analysis with subsequent micro-qualitative content examination based on the SDGs to explore the relationship between BIM and smart cities in promoting a sustainability-oriented business model, which provides a comprehensive understanding of the overall situation and development of research topics in the field and contributes to the improvement of the SDGs. The results show that, during the last 13 years (from the year 2011 to 2023), the period from the year 2011 to 2016 was the initial stage of the field, followed by a rapid growth after the year 2018, of which “BIM”, “Smart City”, “Business Model”, “Building Life Cycle”, “Urban Management”, and “Business Model Innovation” are the keywords representing the current research hotspots. The circular economy model that has been developed since 2021 has contributed to life cycle stages, including “briefing stages” and “procurement stages”. As such, the “whole life cycle”, “strategic urban planning frameworks”, and “sustainable business models” have become future research trends, whilst real-world applications such as “smart tourism”, “e-government”, and “green building” have emerged. Further, the key partnerships of “city managers”, “corporate enterprises”, and “public participation” for smart cities contribute to the achievement of SDGs 8 and 17 in terms of integrating urban information technology and urban infrastructure, policy regulation, knowledge-sharing, improving economic efficiency, and promoting sustainable economic growth. Full article

Ibiza is an island in the Western Mediterranean internationally known as a sun and beach tourist destination, and it is notable for its nightclubs. This fact is the result of a century of tourist history that began in the first third of the 20th century and reached its maximum data at the end of that century and the beginning of the 21st century. Using the tourism area life cycle (TALC) model as a reference, it is possible to affirm that Ibiza has already gone through most of the stages proposed by the TALC. The objective of this work is to undertake a historical approach to the events and context that this island experienced during the period that could be considered to be a consolidation stage (1977 to 2000), which is still little analyzed. During this period, demand growth continued, although at a slower pace than in the previous stages, and suffered the first major crisis. The regional administration had to face the errors of the previous decades with various legal actions as follows: the limitation of the accommodation supply, which was already oversized by that stage; the environmental protection of spaces that had not yet been affected by urban development; the modernization of the offerings, much of them being obsolete and degraded; and the diversification of the issuing markets, which had until then been focused on Germany and the United Kingdom. The economic crisis of the early 1990s was a turning point for the tourism sector, both in terms of administrations and companies, and quantitative growth was replaced by qualitative growth in the following years. Starting in 2000, tourism in Ibiza entered a new phase characterized by the modernization of the offerings and the stagnation of data. Full article

Sensitive and remote areas have come under pressure from growing populations and tourism, often resulting in improper wastewater management. Efficiency, durability, the use of renewable construction materials, and the minimization of environmental impacts must be conformed to a sustainable paradigm. A life cycle assessment (LCA) was applied to compare three different decentralized wastewater treatment systems built at tourist facilities: a source separation sanitation system with a hybrid constructed wetland (S1), a sequential batch reactor (SBR) with a hybrid constructed wetland (S2), and a solar-powered composting toilet (S3). Benchmarking showed that S1 was preferred over S2. The differences were up to a factor of two, except for eutrophication, which was significantly higher for S2 (10×). S3 had the lowest environmental impact, but S3 treated only the blackwater fraction, i.e., urine, faeces, and toilet paper, and excluded greywater treatment, i.e., handwashing and/or kitchen wastewater. The scenario analysis showed that the environmental performance could be improved by installing solar panels, but this would increase the impact on the abiotic depletion of elements by 83% for S2. The LCA indicated the advantages, disadvantages, flexibility, and potential for design improvements to meet the environmental sustainability and market demands for system diversity. Full article

This paper presents an overview of various types of virtual museums (ViM) as native artifacts or as digital twins (DT) of physical museums (PM). Depending on their mission and features, we discuss various enabling technologies and sensor equipment with their specific requirements and complexities, advantages and drawbacks in relation to each other at all stages of a DT’s life cycle. A DT is a virtual construct and embodies innovative concepts based on emerging technologies (ET) using adequate sensor configurations for (meta-)data import and exchange. Our keyword-based search for articles, conference papers, (chapters from) books and reviews yielded 43 contributions and 43 further important references from Industry 4.0, Tourism and Heritage 4.0. After closer examination, a reference corpus of 40 contributions was evaluated in detail and classified along with their variants of DT—content-, communication-, and collaboration-centric and risk-informed ViMs. Their system features correlate with different application areas (AA), new or improved technologies—mostly still under development—and sensors used. Our proposal suggests a template-based, generative approach to DTs using standardized metadata formats, expert/curator software and customers’/visitors’ engagement. It advocates for stakeholders’ collaboration as part of a comprehensive validation and verification assessment (V&VA) throughout the DT’s entire life cycle. Full article

In the fight against climate change, future policy directions in the transition toward a green travel- and tourism-based economy include improving tourism-derived CO₂ emission levels and guiding individual low-carbon behavior. In China, people tend to engage in outdoor adventure travel and cultural tourism in natural areas. However, limited information is available on the empirical evaluation of energy use and the CO₂ emissions associated with tourism in protected areas. The present study used a life cycle assessment to explore energy use and CO₂ emissions due to tourism and identify the factors driving low-carbon behavior. To these ends, survey data for the protected areas of the Qinling Mountains from 2014 to 2019 were used. The results showed that energy use and CO₂ emissions in various tourism sectors steadily increased from 2014 to 2019, primarily because of an increase in transportation activity. This study used data derived from the calculation of CO₂ emissions per tourist per trip to identify the various factors jointly contributing to the low-carbon behavior of tourists. These included a low-carbon attitude, low-carbon knowledge, environmental education, and policy reward. The broader implications of this study are that several emission reduction policy options are available to address the challenges inherent in sustainable tourism development and that these policies may be selected according to specific conditions. The low-carbon transformation of recreational facilities at travel destinations, policy rewards, and environmental education can regulate tourist behavior, holding the key to sustainable tourism development in protected areas. Full article

Every year, hundreds of millions of people around the world travel to sacred places to worship and to learn. While the practice of pilgrimage has a long tradition and is an important part of many religious traditions and the spiritual development of individuals, some scholars have begun to question the sustainability of modern pilgrimage travel. Not only does pilgrimage, like other forms of mobility, contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases and waste accumulation, it also seems to be exempt from blame when it comes to the current environmental crisis. In addition, while mass religious gatherings have historically been tied to the transmission and spread of disease, the threat of pilgrims becoming infected while on pilgrimage has not historically been an inhibiter to religious mobility. Indeed, the demand for pilgrimage seems to increase during times of hardship and uncertainty. Given these inherent contradictions, the purpose of this conceptual paper is to question the notion of sustainability in the context of pilgrimage and religious tourism and discuss whether modern day pilgrimage and religious tourism can be structured and managed in a more sustainable manner. First, the authors discuss the existing academic literature on the positive and negative economics, socio-cultural, and environmental impacts of pilgrimage and religious tourism. The authors then question the validity of certain tourism-environment models, including the ‘Tourism Area Life Cycle’ and ‘Carrying Capacity’, in the context of pilgrimage and religious tourism, particularly as they apply to pilgrimage and religious tourism destinations that do not typically show a decline in their visitor numbers. The authors then expand upon a conceptual model that can help scholars analyze the impacts of pilgrimage and religious tourism on pilgrim-towns. The authors conclude by contending that future discussions regarding sustainability in the context of pilgrimage and religious tourism should include religious and cultural constructs of what constitutes the tangible and intangible forms of sacredness of a place. Full article

The decline is one of the essential issues for developing tourism destinations. The rapid adoption of appropriate policies will enable them to reverse the decline and enter the rejuvenation stage in time. This study advocated establishing an operational evaluation model of tourism efficiency with DEA and the super-SBM model to estimate when China’s mass tourism destinations are in decline and rejuvenation based on the tourism area life cycle (TALC) theory regarding China’s national scenic areas (NSAs) samples. The results show that the development of China’s mass tourism destinations can be divided into three phases, in which there is a clear process of persistent decline and rejuvenation. Different types of NSAs vary in terms of efficiency level and change trends. Human landscape, caves, and wetland and lakes all have distinct phases of persistent decline, but humanistic landscapes show a significant rejuvenation trend. These findings provide an innovative re-interpretation of the TALC model. Full article

As tourism products are not necessities for people’s livelihood, zero consumption data are usually observed while conducting studies on topics that are relevant to tourism expenditure using cross-sectional research data, and a similar problem exists in tourist accommodation expenditure. This study adopts a two-stage process to examine the factors influencing tourist accommodation decisions in the domestic market, applying the dependent double-hurdle (DDH) model while using the dataset on Survey of Travel by R.O.C. (Taiwan) Citizens for the years 2014–2018. The findings reveal that, in the two decision-making equations, the social stratum, family life cycle, residential area, tourism behavior, vacation policy, and economic variables have different degrees and directions of influence on the intention to use and expenditure on tourist accommodation. Such information presents the processes involved in deciding to accommodate and how much to spend on accommodation, thereby indicating that it is inappropriate to use the single-equation analysis consisting of zero consumption expenditure data and to assume that the same variables influence the participation and consumption decisions. Full article

The collapse of tourism caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing many destinations to rethink their economic model, by focusing on sustainability and innovation. Advances in tourism impact assessment can not only improve tourism products and services, but also guide the sector towards responsible choices for the post-COVID era. The paper proposes a new way to assess tourism products using the Life Cycle Assessment—LCA methodology. Thanks to this method the authors quantify the environmental impacts of tourism choices and propose alternative green solutions. Innovation is therefore aimed at promoting a new awareness to support sustainable tourism after the COVID-19 pandemic. Once the impacts have been quantified, local governments can make decisions in their plans to promote the most sustainable solutions. The application of the methodology to a typical case study for the Mediterranean area—Cinque Terre National Park in the Liguria Region (Italy)—further helps administrations to transfer and replicate the authors’ proposal. The proposed methodology is applied taking into account several priority issues for host territories such as the activities carried out by tourists, tourism mobility, and accommodation. Full article

Agritourism has been widely promoted by governments at many levels, especially in the developed regions of Europe and North America, as a tool to revitalize rural economies and as a sustainable path. Research on agritourism has mainly focused on defining and categorizing agritourism, farmers’ perceptions, tourists’ attitudes, tourism benefits, and marketing. However, little attention has been paid to characterizing the processes and strategies of agritourism development in a relatively large region, for instance, in a state or a province. This article uses the state of Michigan in the Midwest of the USA as a case study, systematically collecting academic publications from several literature databases on agritourism, the state’s regulation and policies on agritourism, the development of agritourism associations, the participation of universities in agritourism related to academic and outreach activities, identifying key and critical developmental events, and reconstructing the historical phases of the agritourism development process. It summarizes the significant characteristics of agritourism’s development in the state of Michigan, the state government’s comprehensive strategy and leadership, the universities’ strong intellectual support, and the consistent involvement of the industrial associations, as well as the interactions of these three parties at the different developmental stages of agritourism. The discussion is set in the wider context of agritourism’s development in the USA. We conclude by presenting the implications and recommendations derived from the agritourism development experience in the state of Michigan. We specifically discuss the relevance of the Michigan experience for agritourism stakeholders in other regions worldwide, especially those that are still in the early stages of agritourism development, such as China. Full article