Sustainable Tourism in International Context: Solutions during and after the Global Pandemic Crisis

Dear Colleagues,

Global tourist arrivals have increased from 25 million internationally in 1950 to 278m in 1980, 527m in 1995, 1.32 billion in 2017, and are expected to reach 1.8 billion by 2030. How do we make global tourism sustainable, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic? The concept of tourism sustainability is progressively becoming a complex issue in relation to how companies, stakeholders, and governments meet the ever-growing demands and opportunities on a global scale. This approach, considered as an environmental management tool during the 1980s, is now appreciated as a crucial and dominant factor in modern business discourse. Furthermore, this issue has become an area of study that has been deepened with interconnected theories and approaches, such as in ethics, social issues management, green tourism, cause-related tourism, public policy, stakeholder management, and tourism accountability. These are only a few aspects used to illustrate the phenomena associated with sustainable tourism, thus making it a very multifaceted phenomenon.

Sustainable tourism, in fact, should integrate environmental, social, economic, cultural issues into its global operations. Sustainable tourism should be able to raise the collective consciousness and approach the individual consciousness towards climate change, pollution caused by tourism, atmosphere, water, wildlife, habitat, human, and tourism. Different consumer generations, especially Millennials and Zers, are becoming more and more concerned about sustainable issues and ensuring a sustainable society; their consumption habits and behaviors are becoming increasingly sustainable, as are their concerns regarding the environment, decreasing pollution, and for healthy food, thus allowing future generations similar access to resources as the present ones (Dabija et al., 2019). Young consumers are more reliant on sustainable development goals, being willing not only to sacrifice time and money for the sake of the planet but also to have their own contribution toward ensuring the prosperity of society and the planet. However, today’s challenge is “how to think beyond and outside current limitations to understand how to use and manage planetary resources, not just for the short term but with a view to future need” (Sustainable Development Goals, 2018) as well as how the tourism sector will recover after the global pandemic crisis and how will it be able to reinvent itself taking into consideration the global sustainable development goals.

The purpose of this call for papers is to address global economic, environmental, and social aspects of sustainable development in tourism through policies, best practices, strategies, and initiatives with all stakeholders, including indigenous people, local communities, visitors, industry and government. We aim to (i) understand the most important elements of sustainable tourism and connections among human development and the environment, (ii) how protecting the planet and maintaining resources could support the environment toward reaching inclusive and sustainable economic growth at the level of local destinations; promoting social inclusiveness, creating employment and aiming at poverty reduction in the tourism field; attaining resource efficiency, endorsing environmental protection and taking under control climate change; spreading cultural values, sustaining cultural diversity and raising awareness of heritage’s value; providing opportunities for mutual understanding, peace and security, considering tourism as a powerful tool for soft diplomacy; sustainable tourism strategies during/after the global pandemic crises; young consumers and their preference for sustainable tourism practices and initiatives. All these aims, if reached, will have the effect of decreasing the influence of the entire tourist sector on climate change and radically decreasing the strong reliance on non-renewable sources of energy since their tourism-related consumption has negative ecological consequences (UN, 2017; 2018; 2019) but, in concert, they will also help to break down cultural barriers and build bridges between tourists and hosts (SDG, tourism4development2019.org).

The correct consideration of the existing bonds between tourism, culture, economy, and the natural background is crucial in promoting successful sustainable tourism (Lee and Brahmasrene, 2013). For these reasons, it is important to find stakeholders able to spread through all kind of online and offline communication tools the sustainable tourism’s teachings, hoping that more and more people/stakeholders/visitors will be prone to following the approach and to put its principles into practice.

Recognizing the complexity and plurality at the heart of the global sustainable tourism discipline, this call for papers will fill a gap in the market by posing a number of original research questions on the intrinsic nature of sustainable tourism and to address gaps in knowledge in innovative ways to generate transformational change. In addition, it seeks to offer multiple, often competing answers to those questions by reviewing, in a different and integrated perspective, dominant existing themes with the literature and subjecting them to critical scrutiny through a multifocal perspective.

In view of the above, the proposed Special Issue aims to include the following topics and questions of interest, amongst others, in the cross-cultural study of the impact of sustainable tourism:

• Sustainable tourism strategies after the COVID 19 pandemic
• Human dimensions of environmental change
• Consumer generations and sustainable tourism development
• People, energy, and society
• Planet, people, product, packaging, pricing, and promotion (6Ps) applied to tourism
• Place tourism and smart growth
• Place heritage
• Place branding, community, image, and reputation
• Public and brand engagement to sustainable tourism
• Climate change, environmental auditing, and tourism branding strategy
• Technology and innovation
• Life cycle thinking and the circular economy
• Waste management – reduction, recycling, and resource
• (e)Healthcare and wellbeing
• Digital tourism
• Environmental law
• Ecosystems and global change
• Transitions to a low carbon economy
• Global political ecology
• Ethical implications

We would like to see profound and rigorous theoretical and managerial contributions that substantially advance and challenge existing theories used in global tourism and business research, performance, and competitive advantage. As such, articles must be able to demonstrate, clearly, a significant contribution to sustainable tourism management scholarship.

We have no a priori preferences regarding the theoretical stance or methodological approach. We welcome papers using traditional methodologies, survey, qualitative research as well as emerging innovative approaches including the use of algorithms, contrarian case analysis, and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

Dr. Pantea Foroudi
Dr. Maria Palazzo
Dr. Dan-Cristian Dabija
Guest Editors

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• sustainable tourism
• international context
• COVID-19
• global pandemic crisis
• sustainability
• tourism