Sustainability Performance in the Tourism Sector
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Tourism, Culture, and Heritage".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (22 June 2022) | Viewed by 27739
Special Issue Editors
Interests: strategic management; dynamic capabilities and innovation; sustainability; districts; family firms
Interests: decision support systems; business organisation; corporate strategies; management; area of activity and strategy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Growing concern about the excessive consumption of resources, the degradation of ecosystems, and social inequalities has given rise to urgent calls for governments, companies and other organizations to apply actions and measures that enable a transition towards a more sustainable society and economy.
In this context, tourism companies, and the destinations of which they form part, need to do more to develop innovative competitive strategies that, apart from allowing them to identify and defend a unique position in the market, provide SDG-based solutions to growing social and environmental problems.
This objective of achieving sustainability—accounting for the economic, social and environmental spheres—will be increasingly difficult with strategies exclusively focused on efficiently managing tangible and financial assets. In a knowledge economy such as the one we live in, company results are ever more dependent on the wealth of the firm’s portfolio of intangible assets, which protect the company from imitation by carving out a different way of doing things.
The importance of managing these intangible assets to improve environmental performance is heightened in the tourism sector. Although research on sustainability issues has traditionally focused on the manufacturing industry, recent data on pollution produced by the tourism industry, its dependence on natural resources and the surrounding environment of competing tourism products, and its estimated exponential future growth have made it the focus of a growing number of recent publications, as well as business and political agendas.
In addition, the tourism sector is highly dependent on values and capabilities such as reputation, trust, commitment and cooperation among a variety of agents (employees, clients, suppliers, governments, institutions, agencies, residents and tourists), creativity, innovation, technology and quality, on the basis of which differentiation strategies for sustainability can be established.
There is growing demand for tourism companies to adapt their business models around sustainability and the circular economy in response to the massive social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, it should be noted that the efforts mentioned above will be in vain if they are not appropriately transferred and communicated. The increased pressure from interest groups regarding tourism companies’ social and environmental performance, together with competitive pressure, are intensifying the pressure on them to complement their financial reporting with other non-financial reports.
Despite this recommendation, companies still face serious difficulties in implementing appropriate metrics of their sustainability and social responsibility actions to identify the impacts of their activity in relation to the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Moreover, they face the challenge of translating them into monetary terms in order to prioritize the allocation of resources.
Therefore, the aim of this Special Issue is to include papers that contribute to this knowledge with conceptual or empirical studies that present new ideas, theories, advancements, experiences, evidence or methodologies that enhance the knowledge about the antecedents and outputs related to sustainability performance both at destination and firm level.
- Explanatory factors of sustainability performance at the company level: distinguishing between resources, practices, capacities, corporate strategies, structure of ownership and corporate governance.
- Mechanisms and strategies that ensure a balance/convergence between sustainability dimensions and competitiveness.
- Explanatory factors of sustainability performance at the destination level: culture, policy-making and government initiatives, legislative and normative development, institutional and social pressure. The analysis of shared resources and capabilities of the tourist destination for sustainability performance, adopting the theoretical lens of the destination as a tourist district.
- Mechanisms and practices that stimulate cooperation between agents of a tourist destination, with special emphasis on those that promote interaction between public and private spheres for sustainability performance. Related to this point, it is important to highlight practices to encourage stakeholder engagement with environmental interests (green supply chain enhancement).
- Mechanisms and practices that allow environmental and social benefits to be leveraged to improve business performance and regional development.
- Circular economy and tourism. Life cycle and maturity of destinations and evolution towards circular tourism.
- Firm- and destination-level barriers to sustainability performance.
- Tools and indicators to measure sustainability performance in its three spheres, at both firm and destination level.
- Non-financial reporting as an expression of sustainability of the tourism industry
- Experiences of sustainable companies and tourist destinations.
Prof. Dr. Beatriz Forés Julián
Prof. Dr. César Camisón
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- sustainability performance
- sustainability of tourism firms
- sustainability in tourism destinations
- drivers of sustainable performance in tourism
- natural resources and competitiveness in tourism
- environmental management and competitive advantage in tourism
- new responsible business models in tourism
- cooperation in sustainability
- green supply chain in tourism
- sustainable development and tourism growth
- sustainability innovation in tourism
- circular economy and tourism
- sustainability performance measurement
- non-financial reporting in tourism firms
- socially responsible tourism firms and destinations
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