Tourism Development in a Wellbeing Economy

Abstract

As measures of wellbeing have matured, wellbeing-related outcomes have become increasingly relevant as inputs to policy-making, with increasing numbers of countries using wellbeing metrics to guide decision-making and inform government budgetary processes that support sustainable development. The concept of the wellbeing economy (WBE) is gaining traction as a serious alternative to ‘business as usual’ in industrial development and may be expected to have increasing relevance in tourism planning, policy development, and assessment. The paper addresses the nature of the WBE, what it is, and what it is expected to achieve for both public- and private-sector stakeholders. The implications for tourism policy, destination development and tourism operations are discussed. Several types of barriers to participation by the tourism industry in the WBE agenda are identified. The final section outlines a future agenda for tourism research and sustainable development based on a wellbeing-informed approach.

1. Introduction

Policymakers worldwide typically espouse a neoliberal world view in support of economic growth. Neoliberalism is a politico-economic perspective affirming that human wellbeing can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework featuring strong private property rights, flexible product and labour markets, and free trade. The role of government is to enforce the conditions under which market activity can thrive [1]. Neoliberalism creates virtues of self-interest, individualism, and maximisation of business profits and shareholder wealth and separating ethical principles from economic activity and is the world’s dominant model for global economic growth and development [2]. Neoliberalism is also the dominant influence on strategies used for tourism development worldwide [3,4].

As part of a viewpoint critical of neoliberalism, there is growing recognition among researchers and policy makers that economic growth and higher personal income are not synonymous with societal advancement and human development and that the measurement of societal wellbeing must go beyond traditional economic measures [5]. Resolution 65/309, as adopted by the UN General Assembly, calls for a ‘more holistic approach to development’ based on the notion of sustainable happiness and wellbeing, inviting countries to develop measures for the pursuit of happiness and wellbeing in public policy and in development policies [6]. More recently, the UN Secretary General has called for ‘new measures to complement GDP, to support people and our planet’ [7]. An important motivation for the development of the UN Statistical Framework for Measuring Sustainable Tourism (SF-MST) is the recognition that standard economic performance measures such as GDP do not capture important dimensions of people’s wellbeing.

Over the past decade, a broad movement known as the Beyond GDP approach has emerged to develop broader measures of social progress to replace, adjust or complement growth in GDP [8,9,10]. The Beyond GDP research agenda is currently developing a more comprehensive understanding of measures of social progress, with enhanced wellbeing at the core [11,12,13]. Proponents affirm that increasing human wellbeing is the fundamental purpose of a political–economic–social system and that the pursuit of sustainable wellbeing is instrumental in that effort [14,15,16,17,18]. The growing interest in wellbeing among researchers is evidenced by an evolving body of literature investigating the definition, measurement, and determinants of human wellbeing [19,20,21].

Within the Beyond GDP approach, there has been increased attention to social wellbeing as a goal of public policy, with major advances occurring in the measurement of wellbeing in national statistics [9]. Surveys conducted in many countries confirm strong support for the view that resident wellbeing should be the primary or ultimate goal of public policy and that government decision-making should advance wellbeing, guided by efforts to truly ‘measure what matters’ [22]. In parallel, a growing number of researchers affirm that the primary purpose of industrial development is to contribute to the enhanced wellbeing of all living beings on Earth [11,14,23].

Prominent among organisations taking a wellbeing agenda seriously are The World Health Organization [24]) which has emphasised the ‘urgency of creating sustainable ‘wellbeing societies’ (https://www.who.int/europe/initiatives/who-european-well-being-economy-initiative, accessed on 16 January 2025), and the World Wellbeing Movement [25], a coalition of global leaders from business, civil society and academia aiming to put wellbeing at the heart of decision-making in both business and public policy (https://worldwellbeingmovement.org/, accessed on 16 January 2025).

Emerging from the above-mentioned research efforts, the notion of a Wellbeing Economy (WBE) has been receiving increased attention in the social sciences with regard to research, measurement, governance, and policy [26,27,28,29,30,31]. The WBE recognizes human beings as part of nature, rather than as separate and dominant, while emphasising the need for an equitable distribution of income and wealth. The main advocacy group concerned with transforming economies towards wellbeing-related outcomes is the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll), a global collaboration of almost 200 organizations, alliances, movements, and individuals working together to transform the economic system into one that delivers human and ecological wellbeing [12,13,14,16]. Strongly influenced by WEAll, several OECD countries have formed the Wellbeing Economy Government Organisations (WEGo) partnership. Launched in 2018 members of WEGo (Finland, Wales, Scotland, New Zealand, and Iceland, with Canada associated), aim to advance three key principles of wellbeing at the core of policymaking: living within planetary ecological boundaries, ensuring the equitable distribution of wealth and opportunity, and efficiently allocating resources to enhance social wellbeing [14,16].

WEGo countries are now investigating the factors that support the establishment of a WBE [15,16,17], a development that promises to advance to advance the concept of a sufficiency-oriented, post-growth economy. Taking human wellbeing to be the ultimate goal of good public policy, including achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), WEGo members are attempting to incorporate wellbeing variables into policy decision-making at all stages of the public-policy cycle, from agenda-setting and outcome prioritisation to implementation, policy evaluation, and monitoring [22].

While social scientists in general debate the advantages of developing a WBE, identifying the various challenges involved [32,33,34], the dynamic post-COVID world economy has created the basis for continued growth in domestic and international tourism worldwide, increasing pressure on the economic, sociocultural, and environmental contexts in which tourism occurs. Within the tourism industry, there is growing concern that ‘business as usual’ will inevitably continue to degrade and deplete the natural and sociocultural environments that support industry growth, delivering adverse outcomes to destination stakeholders present and future [35]. Critics are sceptical of the potential for tourism to contribute to sustainable development over the longer term. However, despite recent vigorous debate among tourism researchers concerning the types of tourism that are alleged to steer the industry along an economically, socially and environmentally preferred path [36], the place of outcomes related to stakeholder wellbeing in sustainable destination development remains unclear. While those involved have emphasised different elements of a preferred tourism paradigm and required policy interventions, the potential for wellbeing metrics to guide tourism policy remains under the radar [36].

There is a clear research gap in the tourism literature, as evidenced by the failure of current studies to examine the use of wellbeing indicators to reshape tourism policy [22,36,37]. On this issue, tourism research has much to learn from findings related to the development of a WBE. Given that any shift toward a WBE will affect, and will require support from, all industry sectors, the question to be addressed herein relates to the implications of a WBE for tourism development, policy, and research. The relationship between the WBE and tourism may be expected to be bidirectional. On the one hand, the rise of the WBE will have important implications for the goals of tourism development, the forms of tourism undertaken on both the demand and supply sides, and the key performance indicators of successful progression in the tourism industry. On the other hand, the actions of tourism stakeholders will have important implications for the success or otherwise of the WBE in various areas of public policy, affecting the ability of the WBE to achieve and maintain sustainable wellbeing with dignity and fairness for humans and the rest of nature.

This paper investigates the implications for tourism stakeholders of transitioning to a Wellbeing Economy (WBE). The structure of the paper is as follows. Section 2 discusses the nature of wellbeing, its sources and indicators, and its measurement for policy purposes. Section 3 addresses the nature of the WBE, identifying some key characteristics and what it is expected to achieve. Section 4 highlights the implications of a WBE for destination management. Section 5 discusses tourism policy, emphasising wellbeing-related outcomes for stakeholders at each stage of the policy process: agenda-setting, policy formulation, implementation, evaluation, and monitoring. Section 6 explores the role that tourism-business firms may be expected to play within a WBE. Section 7 identifies barriers to the participation of the tourism industry in the WBE agenda and suggests some strategies for navigating those barriers. Section 8 identifies a future agenda for tourism research based on a wellbeing approach.

2. Measuring Wellbeing

Human wellbeing defies precise definition. It is a multidimensional concept comprising emotional, social, and functional components [19,21,38,39,40]. To adequately embed wellbeing measures in public policy-making, a broad conception of human wellbeing is required; that definition includes a range of human needs and capabilities both within and between generations. Personal wellbeing comprises physical and mental health, capabilities, emotional wellbeing, life satisfaction, vitality, thriving, resilience, self-esteem, flourishing, positive functioning, and eudaimonia, a sense of meaning, engagement and purpose in life. Social wellbeing comprises features such as supportive relationships, trust, and sense of belonging [38,39,40,41]. Clearly, a diverse array of metrics is needed to truly understand personal and social wellbeing [19].

The design of a wellbeing-measurement framework for application in assessing industrial development involves at least two major decisions. One relates to the sources or dimensions of wellbeing. This decision can be based on the research literature investigating the various sources of wellbeing, which should be complemented by surveys of stakeholder values. A second decision involves the selection of a set of measures or indicators of wellbeing-related outcomes within each source dimension. Clearly, a diversity of metrics is needed to truly understand personal and social wellbeing [19]. Ideally, a wellbeing framework should comprise both subjective and objective sources of wellbeing; distinguish between current and future wellbeing-related outcomes, thus allowing sustainability considerations to be embedded into the framework; have a sound basis in theory; be flexible enough to include additional sources of wellbeing and indicators relating to espoused resident values; and have policy relevance [42,43,44].

Measures of wellbeing-related outcomes are progressively advancing our understanding of people’s lives at the individual, household, and community levels [9,39,40]. Standardized quality assessment criteria for indicator selection include relevance, accuracy, credibility, comparability, timeliness, and interpretability [43]. The more highly regarded frameworks comprise a broadly similar set of wellbeing domains and associated indicators [22]. Standardised quality-assessment criteria for indicator selection include relevance, accuracy, credibility, comparability, timeliness and interpretability [43]. An important strength of wellbeing indicators developed in consultation with statistical agencies worldwide is their consistency with destination Systems of National Accounts (SNA), evidence that they provide a credible basis for policy-making [41,42,43,44,45].

WEGo governments have adopted a multidimensional approach to measuring outcomes related to resident wellbeing, identifying a set of dimensions that are valued, together with associated indicators (https://weall.org/wego, accessed on 14 February 2025. Standardized quality assessment criteria for indicator selection include relevance, accuracy, credibility, comparability, timeliness, and interpretability [43]). While destination-specific values are emphasised, the wellbeing frameworks display strong agreement in terms of the key areas that can guide policymaking to improve personal and social wellbeing. Meanwhile, other countries have developed or are developing wellbeing frameworks to guide public policy [23,46]. Australia has recently released “Measuring What Matters”, its first national wellbeing framework, which uses 50 indicators to measure progress across health, security, sustainability, cohesion, and prosperity [41]. An important strength of well-being indicators developed in consultation with statistical agencies worldwide is their consistency with destination Systems of National Accounts (SNA), providing a credible basis for policy making [41,42,43,44,45,46].

A useful way to convey information on a wide array of wellbeing sources and indicators is the ‘dashboard framework’ employed by WEGo countries and others [30,31,46]. A typical ‘dashboard’ comprises high-level, headline sources/dimensions of wellbeing and an associated suite of indicators/metrics with which to track and report on performance within each domain. The precision offered by a scoreboard of distinct indicators helps to develop targeted policies that address particular differences in wellbeing-related outcomes and can facilitate international benchmarking.

The most prominent dashboard approach is arguably the OECD Better Life Initiative [9,38,39]. The BLI framework classifies sources of wellbeing in three pillars: Material living conditions—income and wealth, employment, housing; Quality of life—health, knowledge and skills, work-life balance, social connections, civic engagement/governance, environmental quality, safety and security, subjective evaluation; and Sustainability—wherein changes in the quantity and quality of stocks of economic, human, social, and natural capital provide a link between current and future wellbeing. Key features of the BLI are its inclusion of both objective and subjective wellbeing indicators and the distinction between the drivers of current and future wellbeing. In going beyond the present to consider the essential resources that are needed to sustain wellbeing in the medium and long term, the BLI embeds sustainability considerations into the wellbeing framework. Sustaining wellbeing over time means at a minimum maintaining the stocks of capital necessary to support current levels of wellbeing in the future [9].

The BLI framework is flexible enough to include both ‘generic’ indicators common across different destinations and ‘contextual’ indicators formulated for specific destinations and development contexts [38,39]. By identifying these comprehensive wellbeing indicators, the BLI shifts focus from purely economic measures to a more holistic understanding of individual wellbeing and societal progress. The framework has been employed recently in a range of studies of tourism development and resident wellbeing, including studies of tourism participation in the SDG agenda [47]. Despite the increased attention paid to wellbeing issues by some tourism researchers [48], the tourism research literature has yet to seriously address the importance of measuring wellbeing-related outcomes in the process of tourism development. The broader issue of using a wellbeing framework to inform tourism development in a WBE context remains unexplored.

3. The Wellbeing Economy

WBE is a broad concept inclusive of diverse ideas and actions; these make up a movement striving towards a shared vision of an economy that delivers social justice on a healthy planet [16]. Since different researchers identify and promote different features of the WBE concept, no single definition covers its various elements. At least three different perspectives on the WBE may be identified, with each reflecting a different area of emphasis by WBE proponents [27,28].

The ecological or nature-centric perspective emphasizes humanity’s need to live and operate within planetary boundaries. It emphasises the roles of resilience, regeneration, flourishing, and localised decision-making in supporting wellbeing as a component of sustainable development on a thriving, healthy, and living planet.

The people-centric perspective emphasizes a vision of sustainability in which basic needs are met and a good life for all people in human society is possible; that envisioned society is equitable, fair, just, and inclusive and fosters overall wellbeing for people. Prominent features of this perspective include values such as promoting equity and social cohesion and reducing poverty and inequality to create a society where all people, present and future, have equal opportunity to thrive.

The people- and nature-centric, or integrated, view of a wellbeing economy emphasizes the value of all beings (human and non-human), as well as the ‘web of life’ or the interconnectedness of social, economic, and ecological issues. The integrated approach, bringing the needs of humans, the needs of other beings, and planetary considerations together holistically, seems now to be the dominant view shaping the nature and aims of the WBE.

Within and across each of these perspectives, proponents emphasise certain characteristic features to varying degrees.

Table 1. Essential characteristics of a WBE.

Prioritising wellbeing. The primary goal of a wellbeing economy is to serve people and the planet, delivering human and ecological wellbeing and social justice. It should focus on quality of life and flourishing for all people while protecting the planet’s resources for future generations and other species.

Rejects pro-growth mindset. A WBE recognises that since the economy and human wellbeing are embedded in, and dependent on, ecosystems functioning within planetary boundaries, continuous increases in consumption on a planet of finite resources is not possible. A WBE explicitly prioritizes wellbeing and ecological outcomes over economic growth, with ‘sufficiency’ rather than ‘maximisation’ as an objective.

Sustainability as an instrumental goal. Taking human wellbeing as the ultimate objective of any path to industrial development implies that neither growth nor sustainable development is an end goal in itself, having only instrumental or intermediate value along the path to positive social outcomes for destination residents.

Holistic view of social progress. Given that the economy is embedded in society and nature, repurposing the economy requires new ways of measuring the economy’s performance. A WBE goes beyond traditional economic metrics, incorporating measures of equity, happiness, and environmental outcomes to provide a more comprehensive view of societal progress.

Fair distribution of income and wealth. A WBE seeks to create and maintain a fair distribution of resources, income, and wealth between current and future generations of humans and other species and to identify wellbeing-related outcomes that are changing over time.

Achieving the SDGs. By reorienting economic systems to prioritize holistic wellbeing, a WBE is inherently aligned with the goals and spirit of the SDGs, potentially accelerating progress towards their achievement.

Circular Economy. A WBE incorporate circular-economy concepts, promoting recycling, reuse, restoration, renewal, and regeneration to minimize environmental impacts.

Stakeholder Stewardship. Acknowledging that wellbeing enhancement is the clear objective or end in view of economic development, stakeholders in all sectors must assume a wider stewardship function, transitioning away from socially and ecologically damaging economic activities in a just manner

Public Policy. Public policy must transform away from ‘business as usual’ towards an emphasis on enhancing the wellbeing of all people and all life on Earth. In a WBE, government policies, budgets, and strategies are explicitly aligned with wellbeing goals and indicators, rather than GDP growth.

Localism. A WBE supports governance through cosmopolitan localism, shifting towards more localised production and supply chains where possible.

Beyond silos. Policymaking operates in bubbles, with decision-makers in different government departments and different industries focusing on the resources and outputs for which they are directly responsible without accounting for the wider impacts of their actions in other areas. A WBE will burst these bubbles

New models of the firm. A WBE will require business enterprises to adopt ‘new models‘ of the nature and purpose of the firm. This involves true-cost accounting and leveraging supply chains and innovation for collective wellbeing. In a WBE, the importance of equitable markets and trade implies all costs of production would be internalised and prices adjusted accordingly

Predistribution. A WBE affirms the value of ‘predistribution’, creating a more inclusive economy and designing markets to generate a better distribution of economic resources initially, promoting human and planetary health from the outset as part of a preventative approach to social and ecological problems.

Whole of Government Approach. The use of a core set of wellbeing objectives in the development of policy proposals across government and of a common language that allows agencies to compare wellbeing-related outcomes of alternative policies helps to support a more coherent, whole-of-government approach to improving societal wellbeing, measuring what really matters to humanity.

Value Change. A fundamental shift in values of destination stakeholders is required if tourism is to play a positive role in the transition to a WBE. Tourism stakeholders must adopt a Beyond GDP wellbeing approach if tourism planning, development, and policy assessment are to be consistent with, and supportive of, key performance goals of the WBE.

New governance systems. To achieve a WBE, the economic system and its institutions must be designed to shift social success beyond GDP and productivity growth to deliver collective wellbeing. This requires a major transformation of our world view, society, and economy. A WBE requires governance systems that are transparent, fair, responsive, just, and accountable.

Source: [12,13,14,15,16,17,32,33,34].

summarises some important characteristics of a WBE. The features identified capture most of the main themes associated with the concept.

Each of the themes described in Table 1 has relevance to an ideal approach to tourism development. A WBE recognizes that the sources of wellbeing extend beyond material consumption and include quality-of-life variables. The driving premise is that the economy should serve people and communities, emphasising equity and social justice for all while respecting and seeking to regenerate nature and the planet, which is home to all life. By placing people and their wellbeing at the centre of policy and decision-making, a WBE directly supports the SDGs’ quest to enhance quality of life for all.

The list of WBE characteristics includes many of the ideal characteristics identified by tourism’s critics as supporting the renewal and flourishing of the social and ecological systems in which tourism activity is embedded. Views consistent with the WBE approach have been articulated by a growing number of researchers critical of the direction being taken in tourism destination development globally [5,12,49]. Several of the features of a WBE displayed in Table 1 have implications for destination management, tourism policy, and tourism-business practices.

4. Implications for Destination Management

Taking human wellbeing to be the ultimate objective of any industrial development path, including tourism, implies that neither tourism destination growth, nor sustainable development, is an end goal in itself, each having only instrumental or intermediate value along the path to positive social outcomes for destination stakeholders. Destination managers and tourism researchers need to treat sustainable development not as an ‘end in itself’ but as an instrument to enhance to wellbeing of residents. This implies a focus on sustainable wellbeing rather than sustainable development. This point seems to have eluded tourism researchers, who continue to talk up the need to ‘balance’ economic, social, and environmental impacts. Only if an over-arching aim of development is specified (well-being outcomes) can trade-offs be informed and outcomes prioritised [42,50].

In contrast to the technology-optimistic growth-management view that drives tourism development [51], many proponents of a WBE are critical of the prospect of decoupling economic growth from environmental impacts, as well as of a reliance on further consumption growth to generate greater wellbeing in already affluent societies [14,15]. Several tourism researchers recently have argued for a shift in tourism activity away from pro-growth models emphasising the contributions of inbound tourism and towards more sustainable and beneficial forms of tourism based on domestic visitation, claiming that localisation better promotes sustainable livelihoods, income equality, community engagement, and wellbeing [5,52].

While all would agree that the sources of wellbeing extend beyond material consumption, not all proponents of a WBE are anti-growth. Present trends suggest that the WBE is emerging as a ‘weak post-growth’ perspective—one that moves beyond economic growth as the central goal to a more comprehensive set of wellbeing indicators, but one that in practice remains dependent on economic growth [33,34]. An increasing number of tourism researchers, however, reject the pro-growth mindset that drives tourism ‘business as usual’ adopting a ‘strong post-growth’ perspective [53,54,55]. Others would claim that growth should only be pursued selectively in those areas of the economy that contribute to collective wellbeing and reduced in other areas of economic activity which make a zero or insufficient contribution to social wellbeing [56].

Tourism stakeholders understand that individual wellbeing depends not only on absolute levels of income and wealth, but more importantly, on distributional equity [57]. A good proportion of tourism research has focused on tourism’s potential to reduce poverty through its contribution to SDGs [47]. A WBE assesses and selects policies based on their alignment with a broad set of wellbeing values, providing data at the granular, people-centred level. In this way, a WBE can expand the opportunities available to different segments of the population, allowing them to improve their lives along the dimensions most important to them [18].

The world’s premier tourism body, UN Tourism, has recently attempted to broaden the scope of international tourism statistics using a Statistical Framework for Measuring Sustainable Tourism (SF-MST) [7]. SF-MST is claimed to give a full account of tourism’s current and future economic, social, and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment, and host communities. An important motivation for the development of the SF-MST is the recognition that standard economic measures such as GDP do not capture important dimensions of people’s wellbeing. However, the failure to adequately incorporate a wider range of wellbeing-related outcomes within its recommended range of ‘sustainability’ indicators greatly restricts the scope and policy significance of the SF-MST [36]. Regrettably, the SF-MST does not offer destination managers a framework that supports enhancement of stakeholder well-being outcomes.

Tourism is expected to play an important role in the SDG 2030 agenda, but its participation can be more effective if it is embedded within a WBE [47]. A WBE emphasizes citizen engagement and participatory processes, which can help in achieving SDGs related to peace, justice, and strong institutions. Tourism researchers also recommend the implementation of circular-economy principles to minimise resource use and waste in ways consistent with a WBE view of the importance of restoring and maintaining a safe natural environment for all life [5,53]. An understanding of wellbeing-related outcomes and associated indicators is necessary to determine the success of the global tourism industry in meeting the SDG 2030 Agenda. Assessment of tourism’s progress toward achievement of the SDGs is incomplete without a full accounting of the effects of tourism development on human wellbeing. Adoption of a wellbeing framework allows DMO and other tourism stakeholders to play a more substantive role in the wider process of economic development. It can also support UNWTO advocacy for the value of tourism and its inclusion as a priority in national and international development policies [50].

The concept of stewardship includes a shared responsibility for long-term care for future generations of humanity, planetary and ecological wellbeing, social justice, and cultural rejuvenation within the local and global commons [58]. From the WBE perspective, there is no such thing as an ‘externality’. All economic, social, and environmental benefits and costs, present and future, must be ‘internalised’ by decision-makers and priced accordingly. A number of researchers have acknowledged the stewardship function of tourism stakeholders, basing arguments on the ethical principle of ‘doing what’s right’ and accounting for the wider impacts of their actions beyond the scope of the tourism industry.

Two driving principles—the Responsibility Principle and the Precautionary Principle —underpin the stewardship perspective in tourism development [59]. The Responsibility Principle affirms that access to environmental resources carries attendant responsibilities to use them in an ecologically sustainable, economically efficient, and socially fair manner. Adoption of this principle allows individual and corporate responsibilities and incentives to be aligned with each other and with social and ecological goals. This principle supports the notion that, in all cases, resident values should determine the type and scale of tourism development (if there is any) [59]. The Precautionary Principle argues that there is a social responsibility for all actors to protect the public from exposure to harm when scientific investigation reveals a plausible risk. In a tourism context, this Principle would preclude development actions with possible irreversible effects on natural and sociocultural environments, including those that will affect future generations [60].

WBE represents a shift towards decentralised, participative, localised governance structures that enable local stakeholders to actively participate in community decisions that affect them [30,31]. Localism has the potential to appropriate and re-appropriate power and thus to circumvent top-down governance and corporate interests. WBE recommends that the production and consumption of goods and services should become more ‘localised’ to promote sustainable livelihoods and community wellbeing [16], a view shared by some tourism scholars, who extend the argument to support a switch away from international tourism toward a more localised tourism industry that is smaller and more environmentally friendly and that fosters improved social relations, connectedness, and sense of belonging [5,52]. This acknowledges an important role for the local sourcing of tourism inputs and the development of local cultural services and products. Arguments in favour of localism have been offered in the tourism research literature on the grounds that a shift towards more authentic and localised experiences emphasising the unique qualities of a destination and its community will cause tourists to seek deeper engagement with locals and a rejection of mass tourism activities. Examples include tourism businesses creating products that centre ‘authentic’ tourism experiences, homestays, and community-based tourism [5,49,53].

Policymaking often operates in silos, with decision-makers in different government departments and different industry sectors focusing on the resources and outputs for which they are directly accountable and ignoring the impacts of their actions in areas not directly under their responsibility [42,44]. A wellbeing framework can provide a means to draw together many different cross-departmental policy efforts and provide a more holistic view of whether development initiatives are enhancing or eroding current and future resident and tourism-stakeholder wellbeing. Tourism policies with clear wellbeing objectives can also foster strategic alignment among government departments across the public service via the identification of policy priorities, budgeting, policy coherence, monitoring, and evaluation.

Construction of a WBE will require changes in mainstream community values, reorienting goals and expectations for business, politics, and society. Five core values—dignity, connection, nature, fairness, and participation—guide the development of a WBE, as well as the path towards it. A transformative shift in human values is required to change current consumption patterns, methods, and lifestyles in any destination aspiring to become a WBE [16]. Specific values emphasised by proponents of a WBE include the wellbeing of all living things, a sense of stewardship, deploying resources effectively for the common good, respect for environmental limits, caring, respect, equity, transparency, inclusion, innovation, and collaboration, with all these elements supporting the renewal and flourishing of social and ecological systems [15,23,27,61]. Consistent with the WBE-aligned promotion of the need for changes in values if humanity is to progress, critics of tourism ‘business as usual’ are actively promoting the same types of values for industry stakeholders. Themes common to these critical approaches include the need for a fundamental shift in values of destination stakeholders to values that support the renewal and flourishing of the social and ecological systems in which tourism activity is embedded. Identified values for tourism stakeholders that can substitute for the ‘consumerism’ that characterises destinations worldwide include conviviality, ecocentrism, caring, empathy, and harmony with nature [5,62,63].

Building a WBE requires the redesign of institutions, regulations, infrastructure, and laws to better deliver collective wellbeing. To date, there is no consensus concerning what strategies are needed to replace the current social and political institutions or what form any new institutions will take in a WBE [64]. The governance of a WBE involves shifting from a purely economic focus to prioritising the overall wellbeing of people and the planet. Consistent with this effort, governance issues are receiving increasing attention from tourism researchers, with many advocating a bigger role for community-governance mechanisms that promote fairness, responsiveness, justice, and accountability [65].

5. Implications for Tourism Policy

If wellbeing measures are to make a real difference to residents’ lives, they must be explicitly employed in policymaking for tourism. As shown in

Table 2. The public-policy process.

Agenda-setting	Agenda-setting is the initial stage in the policy cycle in which issues of public concern requiring government intervention are identified. The adoption of a wellbeing approach represents a substantial change in agenda-setting on the part of destination managers.
Policy formulation	Involves defining clear goals based on the problems identified during agenda-setting, developing potential solutions to address the identified problems while identifying the political, economic, and social factors that may influence the achievement of objectives.
Policy implementation	A critical stage in the policy cycle wherein policies are put into action to promote wellbeing-related outcomes for stakeholders.
Policy evaluation	Assesses the effectiveness, impact, and outcomes of implemented policies. Evaluation can take place at various stages of the policy cycle: ex ante, ongoing, or ex post.
Policy monitoring	A monitoring process helps track policy implementation, identifies areas for improvement, and informs the next policy cycle. By continuously assessing progress, policymakers can make data-driven decisions and ensure that policies effectively address identified problems.

Source: authors construction. See [66].

, the public-policy process is a multistage cycle providing an idealised logical and systematic approach to policymaking [66]. Prominent stages include (i) agenda setting, (ii) policy formulation, (iii) policy implementation, (iv) policy evaluation, and (v) policy monitoring. Since the formation of a WBE in service of people and the planet requires that wellbeing goals be embedded across the policy cycle, destination managers need to do this also.

A WBE approach to destination management can support better policymaking by helping to focus policy actions on the outcomes of tourism development that matter most to people and on the most urgent priorities. In a WBE, wellbeing measures can inform every stage of the tourism-policy cycle [29,30,31]. Adopting a wellbeing framework allows destination managers and other tourism stakeholders to play a more collaborative and substantive role in the wider processes of economic development. Tourism policy in a WBE would focus on integrating wellbeing-related outcomes into decision making, aligning tourism policies with wellbeing-economy principles and seeking to create a more sustainable, equitable, and beneficial tourism sector to enhance the overall quality of life of all tourism stakeholders. Encouraging destination managers to consider a wider range of wellbeing-related outcomes and impacts has the potential to help make tourism policy trade-offs and spillovers more explicit.

Agenda-setting. Support for a wellbeing framework must be part of a long-term, sustained commitment by the tourism industry that extends across election cycles. A WBE facilitates more balanced agenda-setting. Within a WBE, the tourism-policy agenda will de-emphasise tourism growth (visitor numbers and expenditure) and place more emphasis on tourism’s impacts on resident quality of life. Less emphasis will also be placed on volume of employment creation as opposed to provision of ‘decent’ employment. Agenda-setting will include recognition of the need for transforming institutions to support nonmaterial wellbeing-related outcomes of tourism development, alongside important material benefits. Agenda-setting inevitably involves dismantling the exploitative structures that perpetuate inequality between countries, genders, races, and classes. Public debate is crucial, facilitating consensus in agenda-setting [46]. Deliberative and participatory processes that involve citizens in developing shared understandings of basic needs has the potential to greatly inform the critical tourism debate about the nature and purpose of tourism in the agenda-setting process.

Policy Formulation. Key aspects of policy formulation include setting objectives for tourism development that emphasise nonmaterial wellbeing-related outcomes as well as material benefits related to tourism’s economic contribution, analysing alternative impacts, and developing potential policy solutions. A wellbeing approach to tourism development can strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of government efforts and expenditures to enhance societal wellbeing by focusing destination management on those wellbeing-related outcomes for those groups experiencing the greatest need [46]. Policy formulation can identify groups in the destination in need of additional support or interventions to improve their wellbeing [42,44,66]. Measures under development focus on wellbeing-related outcomes at the individual and household level, identifying inequalities in wealth and income (vertically and horizontally) associated with different marginalised groups in society. Destination managers and tourism researchers should also examine differences in opportunities to access those services and opportunities essential for improving and maintaining wellbeing. Feedback from tourism stakeholders is crucial to assessing the feasibility, effectiveness, and potential impacts of different policy options. Stakeholder wellbeing can inform the scope and scale of options, their feasibility, and the selection of policy instruments and levers.

Policy Implementation. The wellbeing framework can be used by destination managers to allocate funding for particular tourism projects and policy interventions based on their projected contributions to resident wellbeing. In WEGo countries, the government budget process has been identified as an important lever linking resident wellbeing-related outcomes to policy prioritisation [16,46]. Assessing tourism-related budget proposals for their expected impact on selected wellbeing priorities can help embed a wellbeing lens into strategic decision-making and policy development. Underpinning societal wellbeing objectives with a clear set of metrics is an important enabler of accountability in tourism policy.

Policy Evaluation. At the ex post evaluation stage, measures of community wellbeing are critical to assessing policy success. Effective policy evaluation is crucial for continuous improvement in governance and ensuring that tourism policies deliver their intended benefits to society. Adopting a wellbeing framework with comprehensive evaluations of the impact of specific policies on people’s lives allows destination managers and other tourism stakeholders to play a more collaborative and substantive role in the wider processes of economic development. A wellbeing framework can also inform long-term planning in tourism by encouraging systematic consideration of both wellbeing-related outcomes today and resources made available for the future. To highlight intergenerational trade-offs, it is necessary to consider the systemic resources—economic, human, social and natural—that can help to determine whether tourism development today is being achieved at the expense of depleting stocks of resources available to future generations [13,23,67].

Policy monitoring. Developing destinations face particular challenges in collecting data supporting wellbeing measures [44]. The development of wellbeing measures that are specifically tourism-focused may pose an added burden on emerging tourism destinations. A large share of tourism-related activity takes place in the informal economy and thus beyond the scope of institutionalised channels of data collection and monitoring mechanisms [7]. Of course, efforts to develop statistical capacity in tourism and/or wellbeing assessment will inevitably also compete with other statistical priorities [42].

The discussion reveals that wellbeing measures should be employed at each stage of the tourism-policy cycle. This effort is embedded within a conception of the WBE and is argued to have substantial implications for tourism-destination planning, management, policy assessment, and research.

6. Implications for Tourism Businesses

The Beyond GDP agenda on responsible business conduct [68] calls for a new mindset that extends businesses activity away from the standard Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) injunction to ‘do no harm’, towards an approach of ‘doing good’. Effective transformation needs to engage the whole business regeneration model in ways that either do less harm to nature’s ecosystems or actually contribute positively to human flourishing [62].

Tourism operators can play an important role in the transition to a WBE, fostering a prosperous, resilient, and thriving economy driven by a purposeful, diverse, and financially and ecologically sustainable business base. This requires business managers to adopt a holistic approach, considering social, environmental, and economic impacts of their decisions [69]. Tourism businesses within a WBE will need to share certain values characteristic of that approach. These include a corporate culture that aligns the organisational purpose with collective values (connection); a business model that creates the means for employees, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders to live dignified lives (Dignity); a business model that distributes wealth in a way that supports equity and equal opportunities (Fairness); use of natural resources that flow back into ecosystems in ways that support regeneration rather than cause harm (Nature); and balanced and values-based relationships with all stakeholders (Participation) [69].

A WBE shifts the managerial focus of tourism operators from profit maximisation to advancing human and ecological wellbeing. New business models of the firm are under development by management researchers based on sharing, cooperation, communities, and localised economies, rather than competition [70,71]. These new models emphasise the capacities of firms to create long-term value for all their stakeholders within and outside the business, beyond short-term profit and beyond shareholder value. Beyond financial outcomes, tourism operators should attempt to create long-term value for all stakeholders, generating various other types of societal wealth through activities such as creating mutually beneficial, ‘flourishing’ relationships with stakeholders.

In a WBE, the importance of equitable markets and trade implies that all costs of production would be internalised, with prices adjusted accordingly [13,14]. A tourism firm in a WBE will incorporate the true costs of economic activities on the environment, including negative externalities, thereby encouraging more sustainable practices while discouraging environmentally harmful activities. New types of businesses and social organisations are required to serve as instruments of wellbeing creation. An important area of consensus is that wellbeing-related outcomes relating to economic, social, and environmental effects of business operations should be embedded in mission statements, rather than treated as ‘externalities’ [3].

New models of the firm can guide tourism businesses to support a WBE in several key ways including redesigning products and processes to be more resource and energy efficient; embracing circular production with products designed for reuse, recycling, and minimal waste; developing products and services that actively contribute to social and environmental wellbeing; seeking opportunities to address societal and ecological challenges through business innovation; moving beyond traditional financial metrics to measure success; incorporating wellbeing indicators into business performance evaluation, and developing policies that promote a healthy work-life balance [15,17,18]. Organisations with strong employee wellbeing programs experience lower turnover rates, resulting in reduced recruitment and training costs and improved financial performance [72]. Employees in organisations that prioritize wellbeing tend to be healthier, leading to fewer health-related costs for the company, a more positive work environment, and higher levels of engagement with customers. By adopting these practices, tourism businesses can play a vital role in transitioning to and supporting a WBE that serves people and the planet. Recent advances in the study of innovation in sustainable business models have identified many pathways a tourism firm can take when it implements a process for sustainable business innovation that is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals [50,73].

Opportunities exist to extend to tourism businesses the wellbeing lens that is core to the Beyond GDP approach while also exploring the advantages of different types of business models firms can adopt that are consistent with this approach. Effective engagement between governments and businesses of different sectors and sizes will promote positive outcomes in overcoming the broader economic, societal, and environmental challenges that arise when making such changes. The new kind of economy in which tourism businesses will operate will help to foster equal opportunities and wellbeing for all [69].

7. Barriers to Implementation

While several governments and organisations have made commitments to establish a WBE, these policies have not been adopted with the required urgency [61]. Various types of challenges preclude the transition to a WBE. Existing mindsets are often deeply embedded and hard to change, and vested interests can present a significant barrier to changing the status quo. Important barriers to employing wellbeing frameworks in policy settings include a lack of political imperative or a lack of government support for the development of wellbeing measures ‘Beyond GDP’ [42]. Perhaps the biggest barrier to the development of better measures of progress towards this goal is the neoliberal belief that growing GDP is the prime goal of development [1,2,3].

Irrespective of the types of transformations that are favoured by WBE advocates, there will inevitably be institutional resistance to change from tourism organisations and firms with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo or ‘business as usual’ in tourism.; Such resistance could also come from other industries. These would include industries and businesses whose financial success is predicated on continually increasing economic activity, a system that conflicts with the longer-term focus of a wellbeing economy, as well as statistical agencies that are responsible for collecting, managing, and reporting on standard economic indicator sets [3].

The way policymaking institutions are designed and operated incentivizes and encourages short-termism and siloed decision-making [32]. Any serious transformation away from a growth-management approach in tourism will need to confront a set of national and international organisations that are ideologically committed to economic growth and integrally linked to commercial interests [32]. Confronting these barriers requires the involvement, engagement, and participation of all stakeholder groups, including those internal and external to the tourism industry, and of actors at all levels of government. Decision-makers in different government departments and different industries tend to focus on the resources and impacts for which they are directly accountable, without reference to the wider effects of their actions on stakeholder wellbeing [42]. A lack of coordination between different industry sectors and government departments can hinder the implementation of WBE initiatives.

Efforts to develop wellbeing measures may also clash with the statistical agendas of government agencies. The limited resources available to governments in developing countries may limit the capacity of their statistical agencies to produce and manage comprehensive data on many aspects of the wellbeing framework, particularly at the subnational level, where such data are not collected routinely. The development of new wellbeing measures that are more tourism-focused will be challenging in destinations with limited statistical resources and competing statistical demands, where large amounts of wellbeing data are not collected routinely or where these data exist only outside the national statistical system. The development of tourism-based statistics presents even greater challenges given that, worldwide, a large share of tourism-related activity takes place in the informal economy and is thus outside the scope of institutionalised data-collection channels. In the view of a growing number of critics, to establish wellbeing in its appropriate place in sustainable development, a major transformation in stakeholder values and practice will be needed at all levels of decision-making [3].

Addressing these obstacles requires sustained effort, political will, and a fundamental shift in how we conceptualize and measure economic success. Simply changing the metrics used to incorporate wellbeing indicators into tourism planning, management, and development is insufficient as a change strategy [74].

8. Implications for Tourism Research

Since the WBE construct is still evolving, much research remains to be done to address not only the values that the concept embodies, but how well those values might evolve and persist within the tourism industry as the WBE matures [75].

To better understand the concept of a WBE and its implications for tourism, researchers need to focus on the features of a WBE as listed in Table 1 and the relevance of each for tourism development. As argued, if human wellbeing is taken to be the ultimate objective of tourism development, neither growth in tourism destinations, nor sustainable development, can be regarded as an ultimate goal in itself, each having only instrumental or intermediate value along the path to social progress, with neither measuring ‘what truly matters’. This implies that tourism research should focus on the conditions for achieving sustainable wellbeing rather than on sustainable development [22,37].

Recognising that the economy is embedded in society and nature, repurposing the economy requires new, extended ways of measuring the economy’s performance. This requires tourism researchers to treat the notion of ‘wellbeing’ more seriously than they have to date [37]. Historically, where tourism research has addressed wellbeing measures, the focus has been on subjective measures of tourist and resident wellbeing, employing survey data on ‘perceptions’ and ‘satisfaction’ with life in general or with respect to particular types of tourism developments [76]. This focus has resulted in a failure of tourism research to address the structural causes of wellbeing and has also led to the neglect of the wellbeing-related effects of tourism development for future generations. Future wellbeing, dependent as it is on changing levels and qualities of capital stocks—economic, human, social and natural—cannot be addressed in the absence of objective (physical or monetary) measures to complement subjective measures Some interesting and relevant tourism-related research is currently being undertaken on these issues [77,78,79]. In the context of a WBE, tourism researchers must employ a dashboard of subjective and objective measures of wellbeing if they are to develop a truly holistic approach to social progress.

To date, tourism research has failed to adequately appreciate that ‘sustainability’ is an essentially dynamic concept relating to the maintenance or enhancement of capital stocks that transmit wellbeing over time. Contributions to current wellbeing are not sustainable if they deplete the resources that shape wellbeing over time. Measures of sustainability focus on the key resources that are needed to underpin social wellbeing now and in the future. A destination’s development path is sustainable if the present generation bequeaths to the next generation a stock of capital capable of maintaining at least the same level of wellbeing per capita [9,67]. Further effort is required to move from the conceptual framework of the capitals approach to a practical set of tools for policy to enhance current and future resident wellbeing-related outcomes associated with tourism development.

The attractiveness of the WBE research agenda comes from its power to draw from and articulate different sources and streams of thought that are relevant to conceptual progress and policy prescriptions [16,17,18]. Tourism researchers need to devote more attention to analysing the links between the subjective and objective dimensions of resident wellbeing in tourism contexts. Research needs to address notions of fairness in the distribution of income and wealth generated by tourism growth. The pro-growth stance of tourism development, policy, and research also needs more critical attention and revision, with a view to disentangling the industry’s dependence on economic growth. A range of sufficiency-oriented tourism policies could benefit from expanded understanding of the sources of wellbeing and relevant measures. Tourism researchers interested in developing a tourism industry supportive of a WBE need to analyse the relationship between each type of capital stock and stakeholder wellbeing. Tourism researchers cannot simply assume that policies enhancing the wellbeing of the present generation of residents will necessarily enhance the wellbeing of future residents.

Support for a WBE requires that tourism researchers acquire a better understanding of wellbeing and sustainability. Tourism economists need to undertake a greater research effort to investigate the role that the principles and practices of ecological economics might play in supporting a WBE [15,23]. Recognising that the economy is fundamentally embedded within society, which is embedded within the rest of nature, ecological economics is a transdisciplinary effort to understand and manage the complex system of humans and the rest of nature, with the goal of mutually enhancing the wellbeing of all living beings. From an ecological economic perspective, tourism researchers need to focus on the complex interrelationships between ecologically sustainable wellbeing (including system carrying capacity and resilience), socially sustainable wellbeing (including the distribution of wealth and rights, social capital, and coevolving preferences), and economically sustainable wellbeing (including allocative efficiency via institutions matched to the specific goals and resources in question) [15,30,36].

New metrics under development that incorporate current knowledge of how natural, social, human, and built capital assets interact to contribute to sustainable wellbeing [28,32,33] can also be employed in tourism research. Tourism researchers need to participate in the development of valuation techniques that build on an understanding of the role of ecosystem functions in economic production and wellbeing, give adequate weight to uncertainty and ignorance about how these connections work, and more fairly weight the preferences of rich and poor, present and future. Thus far, tourism economists have made little effort to address this valuation issue [37].

Research is also needed to advance our understanding of the different types of barriers to tourism developing in ways consistent with the principles of a WBE and how each of these barriers might be overcome. Tourism researchers can play a role in advancing knowledge of what types of tourism-related institutions, policies, and strategies to support in order to move us towards our shared vision. Tourism researchers need to explore the cultural changes needed for the tourism industry to support the WBE. Tourism educators can transmit to students the need for value changes in the mindsets of tourism stakeholders.

Whatever the types of structures that evolve, it is essential that grassroots-level public input as to preferred futures is encouraged, respected, and acted on. In this respect, tourism planners, managers, and developers can learn from heterodox theorists seeking new ways of organising societies to improve resident wellbeing.

9. Conclusions

The concept of the WBE is gaining traction as a serious alternative to business as usual in industrial development. By redefining economic priorities and incorporating a broader range of indicators, a WBE can create a more sustainable, equitable, and fulfilling society for all. A WBE highlights outcomes that matter to people’s living conditions and quality of life, but that are often not currently considered in routine policy analysis. As measures of wellbeing have matured, wellbeing-related outcomes have become increasingly relevant as inputs to policy-making, with increasing numbers of countries using wellbeing metrics to guide decision-making and inform budgetary processes. Several (WEGo) countries are now investigating the creation of a WBE, a development that promises to advance a sufficiency-oriented post-growth economy. However, a great deal of further effort is required to develop the concept of the WBE and to understand its implications for the development of industries, including tourism.

In parallel, and independently of the WEB literature, a growing number of critical tourism researchers have been arguing that there is a need for a fundamental shift in the values of destination stakeholders to values that support the renewal and flourishing of the economic, social, and ecological systems in which tourism activity is embedded. The paper addressed the roles that tourism planning, policy development, and assessment could play in generating positive wellbeing-related outcomes within a broader WBE. The paper has identified a clear research gap in the tourism research literature, given the tendency of current studies to overlook the role of wellbeing indicators in reshaping tourism policy, destination development, and tourism-business practices. Despite tourism researchers’ emphasis on different elements of a preferred tourism paradigm and required policy interventions, they have neglected the potential for wellbeing metrics to guide tourism policy away from ‘business as usual’. Tourism stakeholders have much to learn from findings related to development of WBEs. The arguments against business as usual are sufficiently compelling to warrant the embedding of wellbeing considerations into every stage of tourism development. A future agenda for tourism research and sustainable development based on a wellbeing approach will help to define a tourism industry that can play a more substantial role within a WBE.