Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

With various strains of the novel coronavirus emerging during the last few years, there is a need to reinvent and manage the tourism industry by engaging various stakeholders. Industry and policymakers need to observe the shift and curate tourism-related products and offerings accordingly. In light of the increasing demand for innovations and future directions in the post-COVID-19 period, this article conducts a bibliometric analysis for sustainable tourism studies spanning the years 1990–2021. This paper presents an integrative review of tourism, environment and sustainable tourism to reveal geographical, contextual, and methodological directions for future research. The comprehensive analysis includes contributions on topics and methods, country collaborations, and thematic analysis. The findings are consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals of sustainable production and consumption (SDG-12), with a particular emphasis on sustainable tourism to promote local culture and create jobs (SDG-12.b) and on sustainable growth (SDG-13). The study’s findings can be used to inform future policies and directions; for example, the findings indicate that the hospitality industry is facing challenges that necessitate new regulations to address its socioeconomic and environmental impacts.

Keywords

Sustainable tourism sustainable development goals bibliometric analysis sustainable production COVID-19

Research Highlights

1. Review research for sustainable tourism covering the studies from 1990 to 2021.

2. The comprehensive analysis reports the topical and methodological contributions, country collaborations and thematic analysis.

3. Role of COVID-19 has been reported from over-tourism to under-tourism.

4. Sustainable development goals are discussed in context of sustainable tourism planning.

5. Novel implications are discussed for socioeconomic and environmental impacts.

Introduction

Over the last fifty years, the global tourism industry has expanded dramatically. The number of international travelers and tourists increased from 165 million in 1970 to 1.4 billion in 2018 (Richard Denman, 2004), significantly contributing to global revenue generation. Given the travel and tourism industry’s extreme intensity in terms of energy consumption, water consumption, nondurable product consumption, and toxic emissions into the air, soil, and water, anti-tourism sentiments are also growing. The high environmental footprint of the industry has led to the opinion that the exponential growth of tourism contributes to the degradation of the environment, triggering efforts toward sustainable tourism and SDG goals (Font et al., 2021; Moreno-Luna et al., 2021). It has also triggered government-led planning in some regions to regulate tourism development for mitigating its negative socioeconomic and environmental impacts (Inskeep, 1988), while some governments have continued their thrust on increasing the volume of tourists and on boosting the travel industry (Goffi et al., 2019; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018b).

The adoption of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations in 2015 spelt a paradigm shift in how development is viewed (Sharma et al., 2021d). Post-2015, sustainability claims that concurrently tackle the environmental, economic, and socio-cultural “triple-bottom line” (TBL) by incorporating imperatives to empower individuals and promote their cultures have grown in prominence (Weaver et al., 2020). Richard Denman (2004) recognizes economic, social, and environmental issues as the three critical components of economic value, environmental sustainability, and community preservation. Academic literature also underlines the volume of travel/tourists, environmental quality, and contribution to locals’ lives as the three vital parameters to evaluate the success of the tourism industry (Font et al., 2021; Ko, 2001; Pan and Dossou, 2020; Sharpley, 2020). Educating the stakeholders about environmental problems can facilitate the ownership of responsibility, leading to advancement in attaining sustainability through tourism (Erick T Byrd, 2007). In this connection, the Davos Declaration of 2007 has already emphasized the need to encourage tourists to make conscious choices that reduce their carbon impact and improve key sustainability aspects (Passafaro, 2020).

Despite their negative social and environmental consequences, tourism operations have not been vigorously regulated worldwide, owing to the sector’s enormous employment potential (World Travel and Tourism Council estimates the tourism sector will create 421 million jobs by 2029). The travel and tourism sector’s strong potential to contribute to economic development by attracting foreign currency and creating jobs has resulted in over-tourism, which is considered detrimental for the local community, natural environment (De Haas, 2002; Diamantis, 1999; Hall and Lew, 2009), and traditional cultures (Bramwell and Lane, 1993) due to its irresponsible utilization of natural resources.

Tourismification negatively impacts sustainable development (Hunter, 1995) by giving rise to unsustainable tourism and adversely affecting local communities and citizens (UNWTO, 2020b) and traditional values (Cole, 2007b; Yang and Wall, 2009b). While the debate on over-tourism and its ill-effects was at its peak (Bertocchi et al., 2020; Cheung and Li, 2019; Jørgensen and McKercher, 2019; Pearce, 2018; Zmyślony et al., 2020), the world hit a roadblock in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic. The disease’s high infection rate forced governments to impose containment measures such as lockdowns and foreign travel bans (Sharma et al., 2021b). Thus, it took just a few months for the world to transit from over-tourism to under-tourism, a state that is likely to persist for quite a while given the new waves of the disease sweeping the globe (the ongoing COVID-waves in different regions such as India, Europe, and North America), and the risks associated with tourism during such times.

While under-tourism jeopardizes the sector’s revenue generation, over-tourism creates serious social and environmental problems, calling for the need to understand the optimum level of tourism that can contribute to environmental protection without compromising financial growth. This calls for exploring newer ways and means to generate revenue from the industry without compromising sustainability. Some recent research has pondered upon alternative forms of destination tourism such as coastal/island tourism (Grilli et al., 2021; J. Liu et al., 2020a), edu-tourism (Alipour et al., 2020), community-based tourism (Lapeyre, 2010; Okazaki, 2008; Olya et al., 2018; Rasoolimanesh et al., 2017; Shunnaq et al., 2008), spiritual tourism (Cortese et al., 2019; Kato and Progano, 2017; Long and Nguyen, 2018; Saxena et al., 2020), and heritage tourism (Joun and Kim, 2020; Koren-Lawrence et al., 2020; Lai, 2020). Given that tourism was largely blamed for facilitating the spread of the novel coronavirus (Sharma et al., 2021c), the tourism scholarship has started focusing on the sustainability aspect of tourism activities since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, some studies (Moreno-Luna et al., 2021; Zenker and Kock, 2020) estimate that the pandemic resulted in the loss of more than 100 million jobs globally, with more than half of those jobs being held by women. This setback might reverse some of the progress made toward the SDGs, while also resulting in billions of dollars in export losses from tourism.

The world is still in a state of dilemma as to whether the COVID-19 pandemic is a disaster (if so, is it natural, human-made, or socio-political) or a crisis (with a focus on organizational (business or political) acts). Zenker and Kock (2020) emphasize the need for such classification in order to effectively draw from and contribute to disaster- or crisis-related literature. There is no denying that COVID-19 has disrupted the entire scenario of sustainable tourism, but the findings of sustainable tourism research in the wake of COVID-19 are highly fragmented. For instance, some studies undertake a spatial or temporal analysis (García-Gallo et al., 2021; Y. Liu et al., 2020b; Moreno-Luna et al., 2021; Van et al., 2020), some other studies focus on a scale-specific idea (Fermani et al., 2020; García-Gallo et al., 2021; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020; Ko, 2005), while still other studies explore conceptual and theoretical linkages (Sharma et al., 2021c; Zenker and Kock, 2020).

The emerging literature on studying the impact of COVID-19 on sustainable tourism is giving a new turn to sustainable tourism scholarship by posing new challenges and revealing new opportunities. The primary challenge of reviving the sector’s volumes persists, even as the push for sustainable tourism and SDGs gets louder, highlighting the importance of swiftly synthesizing critical research findings. Several studies have attempted to review the literature on sustainable tourism in the past (Streimikiene et al., 2021; Zolfani et al., 2015), but few have viewed the literature on sustainable tourism through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic or devoted special attention to synthesizing the literature on sustainable tourism in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 predicts that through 2050, between $1.6 trillion and $3.8 trillion will be required annually to make the switch to a low-carbon future and prevent global warming of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. By 2100, at least a moderate drought will affect about one-third of the world’s land regions. Approximately 700 million people would be at risk of being displaced by drought by 2030. Taking into consideration the SDG-13 goal of urgent climate action, research pursues two distinct but related goals. Firstly, the authors inform policymakers about the emerging problems for sustainable tourism in the contemporary context. Creative/alternative tourism or destination tourism is suggested as the future of tourism (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020; Hoxie et al., 2012). This would enable small-scale tourism with local stakeholders with a focus on cultural values. Secondly, we propose a research framework to enable the tourism sector’s alignment with the SDG agenda. We have organized the remainder of the paper as follows: the second section discusses the data methodology; the third section presents the findings of our study (classified as a general description, social structure, intellectual structure, and conceptual structure); and the fourth section synthesizes the COVID-19-related research while laying down the agenda for research and policy.

Data and Brief Methodology

The authors retrieved the data for this study from the Web of Science (WoS) core collection, one of the widely used scientific citation index databases globally (Jain et al., 2019). With Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) included in the WoS core collection now, it emerges as the widest and the most diverse database for the research fraternity in literature reviewing (Sharma et al., 2021a, 2021b, 2021c; Srivastava et al., 2019, 2020). We look for publications published between 1990 and 2021 with keywords comprising “sustainable tourism,” “sustainability,” “tourism,” and “tourist.” The Boolean search led us to 1423 documents. The screening based on titles, keywords, and abstracts led us to 1160 documents, out of which 98% (1134) were research articles, and the remaining 2% (26) were reviews and conference proceedings papers. The average number of citations per document is 20.63, and the average citations per year per document are 2.384.

The authors used two software for bibliometric analysis—Visualization of similarities (VOS) viewer and bibliometrix R-tool software. The VOS viewer is a freeware that analyzes and visualizes the inter-relationships of authors, journals, countries, keywords, and co-citations and presents them in a two-dimensional map. The distance between any two items depicts the relatedness or similarity among them. All of the items presented in the visualization map are grouped into different clusters, where each cluster is signified in a different color (van Eck and Waltman, 2010). Bibliometrix R-tool is a flexible and newly developed R-environment-based software package that integrates multiple bibliometric tools’ visualization functions. It contains an exhaustive set of literature information analysis and science mapping functions (Rodríguez-Soler et al., 2020).

Bibliometric Results

This section presents the results and findings of the bibliometric analysis of the selected 1160 articles. According to the findings, more cross-disciplinary studies in the field of sustainable tourism are needed. The maximum number of links were found for the term “sustainable tourism,” with “sustainability” coming in second. A number of authors have looked at sustainable tourism and argued that more attention should be paid to making destinations, especially in vulnerable regions, more resilient (Bramwell, 2015; Butler, 2018). Sustainability practices, including growth caps and responsibility allocation, have been the focus of many studies (Liu et al., 2018; Saarinen, 2014). The degradation of natural resources is a direct result of exponential growth in tourism. One way to ensure the long-term health of biodiversity is through the efficient management of protected areas. Educating tourism stakeholders on environmental issues can inspire them to take better care of the environment (Erick T. Byrd, 2007; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018a). This will help reduce the carbon footprint of the tourism industry and improve sustainability fundamentals.

General Descriptions of Publications

Figure 1 presents the number of publications and citations per year, exhibiting an increasing trend in the volume of publications per year from 2001 to 2018. A number of studies exploring different aspects of sustainable tourism are slowly shifting to the growth stage, with studies exploring the concerned field in new contexts and with respect to specific SDGs in new directions.

Figure 1.

Annual citations and publications.

Figure 2 depicts the co-occurrence network analysis of 50 keywords, occurring a minimum of two times in the 1160 articles. The bigger nodes represent higher frequency, while the lines between these nodes exhibit the co-occurrence of keywords. The most commonly included keywords “management,” “perceptions,” “corporate social responsibility,” and “conservation” have the highest link strength, indicating future research must study the different dimensions of this inter-disciplinary research.

Figure 2.

Keyword co-occurrence.

For instance, publications in the purple cluster study the role of tourism from the perspective of managing and achieving sustainable development by including different contexts and sub-themes (Bagur-Femenías et al., 2015; Dimmock and Musa, 2015; Dvarskas, 2017), while the publications in the green cluster relate to studies on stakeholders and sustainable tourism (Arambiza and Painter, 2006; Gadgil et al., 1993; Segger and Phillips, 2015). Similarly, the least studied keywords that require immediate attention are “values,” “green,” “determinants,” “competitive,” and “perceptions.”

Social Structure of Publication Corpus

The map of co-authors (Figure 3) illustrates the scholars with the highest academic output who often control the development of trends in sustainable tourism research. According to the analysis, 2783 authors have contributed to 1160 publications. Figure 3 presents the visualization map of 39 linked authors after fixing the threshold of minimum number of publications per author to one. The greater the node size, the higher the publication count of that author (Pattnaik et al., 2020).

Figure 3.

Co-author visualization map.

Further, 11.13 percent of the authors (n = 310/2,783, 11.13%) have contributed to at least two publications, and 3 percent (n = 85/2,783, 3%) have contributed to three or more publications. There are only 2.8 authors per document, and the collaboration index is only 2.71. This indicates the dire need for more collaborative research in the sustainable tourism domain. A higher volume of co-authored publications signals a close-knit relationship among authors within the research domain and a higher possibility of future collaborative work and the sharing of ideas (Wang et al., 2014).

The collaboration pattern (Figure 4) indicates the collaborations between various countries that have contributed to sustainable tourism research. Publications based on “sustainable tourism” between 1990 and 2021 are affiliated to 97 countries; the most productive country from this point of view is China (number of published articles = 317, 27%). The color spectrum denotes the number of articles published in the “sustainable tourism” area, with light blue indicating low productivity and dark blue indicating high productivity (Nita, 2019). Australia (total citations = 4581) is also a significant contributor to sustainable tourism literature, coming in at the third position in terms of productivity (number of published articles = 221, 19.05%). The highest number of citations (Sims, 2009) comes from the United Kingdom (in fifth position by volume) with 206 (17.75%) scientific publications. The most frequent research collaborator pairs, in that order, are Australia and the United States (18), China and the United States (13), Australia and the United Kingdom (12), Australia and New Zealand (9), and Spain and Italy (8).

Figure 4.

Country collaboration map.

The interlinkage among publications, authors, and keywords can provide useful insights. The innovative three-field plot in Figure 5 presents the interactions among the most relevant publications (on the left), authors (in the middle), and keywords (on the right) within sustainable tourism research. The area of the rectangles is proportional to the number of interconnections with the other fields. Among publications, Choi and Sirakaya (2006) lead in the number of links (27) with a focus on measuring community tourism development within a sustainable framework; followed by Hardy et al. (2002) and Miller et al. (2005) that focus on the conceptualization and monitoring of sustainable tourism. In terms of authors with the highest number of linkages, Ruhanen, Lisa leads (133) with a research focus on indigenous tourism; followed by Javier Blancas and Lozano-Oyola, whose research interest is mainly sustainable tourism. Among keywords, “sustainable tourism” has the highest number of linkages (133), followed by “sustainability” (26). This may be attributed to an increased focus on sustainable tourism after the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (Hall, 2019).

Figure 5.

Three-fields plot.

Intellectual Structure of the Publications

Figure 6 depicts the most important publications in the field, underlining how ideas evolve and how publications build on each other (Bamel et al., 2020). Each node represents a publication, and its location on the x-axis shows how it is connected to other publications. The themes that these clusters represent are all closely linked to a specific domain. For example, the red cluster represents the research domain that deals with “sustainable tourism” (Hunter, 1997; Ruhanen et al., 2015; Weaver, 2012), while the blue cluster deals with “indicators” introduced for the assessment of tourism sustainability (Boley et al., 2017; Ko, 2005). The green cluster presents the “stakeholders” and highlights the key actions, such as managing stakeholder adaptability, that can enhance stakeholder involvement in sustainable tourism (Waligo et al., 2013). The purple cluster identifies emerging themes; that is, “sustainable development” with very few authors studying the inter-disciplinary research (Choi and Murray, 2010; Lee, 2013).

Figure 6.

Historical direct citation network.

Co-citation occurs when two documents are cited together, indicating that their content is related (Bamel et al., 2020). Figure 7 presents a network of highly cited authors’ co-citations. The co-citation analysis yielded 50 nodes, which are grouped over a network of four clusters depicted with different colors, namely, red, blue, green, and purple, as shown in Figure 7. The size of each node represents the number of citations. The strongly connected nodes are brought closer together (Zupic and Čater, 2015). As evident from the size of the nodes, the red cluster indicates the most prominent authors, including Bramwell (2011) and Butler (1991), where the authors examine sustainable forms of tourism and argue for a shift toward increasing the resilience of destinations, particularly those in ecologically sensitive areas (Bramwell, 2015; Butler, 2018). Alternatively, Liu et al. (2018) propose an effective method to study sustainable tourism and establish specific scientific countermeasures for improvement. On similar lines, Saarinen (2014) emphasizes the need to re-scale and decentralize tourism in policy frameworks. Hence, a segment of studies concentrates on the practices aimed toward sustainability, defining the limits to growth, and responsibilities in tourism.

Figure 7.

Co-citation analysis of highly cited authors.

The Conceptual Structure of the Publication Corpus

The thematic map (Figure 8) presents the visualization of four different typologies of themes that can be created using the keywords, titles, and abstracts in the bibliographic collection. Figure 8 presents a total of ten themes in four quadrants. Each theme is placed based on Callon’s centrality and density, where Callon’s centrality depicts the degree of interaction among networks and Callon’s density measures the internal strength of the network (Chen et al., 2019). The upper-right quadrant contains two themes, namely, “sustainable tourism development” and “sustainability,” which are called motor themes. They are well developed and highly relevant to the research field structuring. “Environmental impact,” “innovation,” and “environmental sustainability” placed in the upper-left quadrant are called niche themes, as they are not so relevant for the field with well-developed internal links but not so necessary external links. “Stakeholders” and “satisfaction” are part of the lower-left quadrant and are called emerging or declining themes as they are marginal and weakly developed. Lastly, “indicators,” “sustainable development,” and “sustainable tourism” lying in the lower-right quadrant are called transversal or basic themes, which are highly important to sustainable tourism research but underdeveloped (Chen et al., 2019). “Sustainable tourism” also leads in the number of occurrences (305), followed by “sustainability” (182), “sustainable development” (161), “tourism” (123), and “rural tourism” (42).

Figure 8.

Thematic map.

The authors further apply co-word analysis to create a conceptual structure by using co-occurrence of network, to cluster terms extracted from the keywords, titles, and abstracts in the bibliographic collection. The results have been interpreted based on the relative positions of the points and their distribution along the dimensions. The closer the words are represented in the map, the higher the similarity in distribution. Using the sustainability literature, multidimensional scaling (MDS) and co-word analysis was performed. MDS is a way of mapping the different objects in a dataset in a more comprehensible form (Cox and Cox, 2008; Hout et al., 2013). This helps distil out the data and uncover hidden structures (Tzeng et al., 2008). Co-word analysis helps in analyzing the nearness among most frequently cited words. High co-word association implies apparent closeness and shared knowledge, while low co-word association shows that the articles have less in common (He, 1999). Using the highest standardized distance, the results in Figure 9 show the characterized research groups in sustainability.

Figure 9.

Co-word visualization map using factorial analysis.

The findings of MDS group 1 represent four dimensions: place attachment, conservation, protected area, and national park. It can be noted that research into dimensions of this group demonstrates the significance of conservation of travel destinations such as national parks and protected areas in achieving sustainability. The tourism industry has seen exponential growth (almost 56 times) over the last 70 years. It has resulted in an increased volume of international tourists from 165 million in 1970 to 1.4 billion in 2018 (UNWTO, 2020a). This exponential rise in tourism has led to the degradation of the environment, triggering efforts to conserve national parks and protected areas to achieve sustainable tourism and meet SDGs. As per the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), effective management of protected areas by addressing the efficient use of human and material resources can help achieve sustainable biodiversity. It can also help in conserving rare species, as well as protecting water supply and other resources necessary to support tourism (Nelson, J.G. & Serafin, 2013).

The smaller group in Figure 9 represents nine dimensions: heritage, experience, competitiveness, hospitality, green, resilience, climate change, carrying capacity, and involvement. The analysis reveals that climate change is one of the biggest indicators of the detrimental impact on nature (Living Planet Report, 2020). Even the focus points of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) include controlling climate change and saving the planet (UNWTO, 2015). Since the hospitality industry is one of the biggest contributors in destabilizing nature, green initiatives within this sector are critical from a sustainability and SDGs perspective (Ibnou-Laaroussi, Rjoub and Wong, 2020). As per the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO, 2020b), the aim of SDGs is to promote natural heritage and reduce migration to urban areas. Heritage and travel destinations get destroyed through over-tourism, and hence, it is critical to stipulate the carrying capacity of a particular destination (UNWTO, 2020a). Ecotourism also plays an important role in sustainable tourism. It refers to “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities” (UNWTO, 2015).

The analysis’s outcome demonstrates the close relationship between travel/tourist management, stakeholder participation, and tourism governance. Governance must pivot away from the destination and toward the value chain, where stakeholder engagement is critical. The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in an era of under-tourism (Ioannides and Gyimóthy, 2020), resulting in an adverse influence on destination development. Over-tourism has a similar detrimental effect on destination development. Community leadership and capacity management have a critical role in stakeholder management when it comes to sustainable tourism (Roxas et al., 2020). As a result, the concept of increasing stakeholder awareness of environmental issues in order to accomplish sustainability goals (SDGs) is a hot topic of discussion on many worldwide forums (ETC and UNWTO, 2007). Sustainability goals (SDGs) may be more effectively accomplished if stakeholders are informed about environmental issues, therefore increasing their sense of responsibility toward nature (Erick T. Byrd, 2007; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018a).

The multidimensional result depicts an increase in demand for corporate social responsibility by the industry. The way businesses operate influences not just their products and services, but also the lives of their employees and the environment (European Commision, 2019). Rural tourism, community engagement, and cooperation have also been identified as critical components of attaining sustainability (Artal-Tur et al., 2019). Numerous psychological variables such as satisfaction, perception, and attitude have been studied in environmentally sustainable behaviors in the past. Satisfaction shapes perception, which affects an individual’s attitude toward sustainability (Ertz and Sarigöllü, 2019). Tourists need to be encouraged to make conscious decisions to bring down their carbon footprint and support the core aspects of sustainability. Sustainable tourism involves different actors in society, including policymakers, government, and industry. Initiatives to simplify policies to promote sustainable tourism among these players can result in the success of these efforts. Tourism-related policies implemented over the years have been plagued by several flaws, including a failure to strike a balance between economic growth and ecological sustainability (Hall, 2011, 2019).

Another aspect that has long fascinated scholars is the connection between tourism, environmental impact, and energy consumption (An et al., 2020; Khan, Rehman, et al., 2021; Razzaq et al., 2021; 2021a; Rehman and Sohag, 2021). The spread of COVID-19 severely slowed economic and social activity. Since fewer people were traveling and doing business, there was less demand for energy. This suggests that COVID-19, despite its negative effects on society and the economy, may have had some beneficial effects on the natural world. Recent empirical research lends credence to the theory that COVID-19’s contribution to environmental quality may be the only positive outcome (Mahato et al., 2020; Mandal and Pal, 2020; Razzaq et al., 2020). Greenhouse gas emission reductions are attributed to social distancing measures, according to Zambrano-Monserrate et al. (2020).

Discussion and Concluding Remarks

The tourism industry, one of the five main industries in achieving sustainable development (UNCED, 1992), holds immense significance in today’s uncertain times. To understand the literature’s progress and suggest an agenda for future research, we focus on four sub-periods: pre-2008, 2008–2015, 2016–2019, and 2020–2021.

The break of 2008 pertains to the advent of the global financial crisis, which played a key role in changing the shape of tourists’ income and government spending. The break of 2015 signifies the adoption of the SDG agenda, which worked as a pathbreaker in the journey of sustainable tourism. Similarly, 2020–2021 are the COVID-19 pandemic years that threatened to change the entire tourism discourse, therefore needing to be studied separately. More specifically, we argue for the period segregation as outlined below:

2008–2015

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, the need for infrastructure development and sustainability were the keywords to attract investments. This period also reported a fall in disposable income and tourism. The conventional framework for the travel and tourism (T&T) sector changed significantly. Other worldwide issues, such as geopolitical tensions from growing terrorism threats, also affected the T&T industry’s precondition for growth and safe travel. After the financial crisis, new tourism patterns emerged. The Global Future Council on the Future of Sustainable Tourism published a paper on smart travel driven by technology in 2014 focusing on developing and emerging markets. The council anticipated that by 2017, 31 percent increase in aviation travel would cause environmental and community difficulties. Despite global climate agreements and tourism industry efforts to reduce environmental consequences and unsustainable practices, considerable work remained. Hence, the period needs to be studied in detail.

2016–2019

In this period, the industry remained a significant driver of economic growth. Period between 2016 and 2019 had a remarkable impact on the tourism sector. It highlighted the industry’s reliance on sustaining expansion in an uncertain environment while safeguarding the ecosystem. The industry aspired to lead in inclusiveness and sustainability in responsiveness and responsibility. The solutions had to be both global and local with comprehensive social involvement; the kind of tourism that had never been seen before. This era marked the beginning of recovery in travel and tourism. The industry 4.0 developed next generation flexi work occupations; digital natives, notably online travel aggregators, disrupted the value chains; and a sharing economy arose. Customization and employment movements owing to economic structural changes affected the industry.

2020–2021

The World Tourism Organization (2020a) reports that some nations have opened for tourism and others aim to, demonstrating the consequences of the pandemic’s zero tolerance policy. Demand has been severely impacted by industry shutdowns, travel restrictions, and a decline in discretionary spending, resulting in a drastically altered outlook for the business. The industry and its clients have evolved considerably throughout this time. They are more worried about health and hygiene and wary of genomic mutations and government laws. The brief break may have given travelers and the industry time to contemplate climatic and environmental impacts. This time span helps us understand how consumers and the industry have begun to rethink their decisions and tactics.

The thematic map analysis representing the time period before 2008 (Figure 10) depicts a strong presence of management as a basic theme. This reflects upon the great amount of research undertaken in order to manage and achieve sustainable tourism since the Brundtland report of 1987. Further, during this time, the motor themes highlight the role of a firm, as well as its impact on the environment, society, and economy. This points to the need to create models for managing the tourism industry by engaging various stakeholders. Sustainability could be achieved by creating awareness and educating stakeholders about the environmental problems and encouraging them to share the responsibility (Erick T. Byrd, 2007). Tourists would need to make conscious decisions to reduce their carbon footprint and improve sustainability while traveling to various destinations.

Figure 10.

Thematic map for time period before 2008.

In 2008, due to the financial crisis, there was a decline in economic activities, which negatively impacted the environmental policies. The economic recession of 2008 led to a decline in the use of natural resources, and at the same time, the process of implementing environmental policy also slowed down (Putkuri, Lindholm and Peltonen, 2014). The recession of 2008 impacted the environmental and climate policies negatively, which led to the dormancy of climate policies, including the UN climate agreement conferences in the time period of 2009-2013. This brought a shift in theme for the next phase of analysis from 2008 to 2015 (Figure 11).

Figure 11.

Thematic map for time period between 2008 and 2015.

During this time period, along with the basic theme of management, a new peripheral theme of uncontrolled tourism growth due to lack of environmental policies emerged. This irrational use of natural resources was heavily criticized by environmentalists and academicians (de Haas, 2002; Diamantis, 1999; Hall and Lew, 2009; Orams, 1995), emphasizing the exploitation of natural resources and causing permanent damage to the environment (Chan and Bhatta, 2013; Nelson, 1994; Parks et al., 2009; Zapata et al., 2011). It is well understood that tourismification adversely affects the economic (Gössling, 2002; Nepal et al., 2019), environmental, and socio-cultural environment. This led to an increase in price, triggered environmental degradation, worsened climate change, and resulted in the loss of traditional values (Cole, 2007a; Yang and Wall, 2009a). The climate crisis led to migration and impacted the social and economic environment. For example, extreme drought and heat conditions in central and northern Africa and the Middle East resulted in new waves of migration. The level of migration increased by ten percent due to climate crisis. Future research could be taken up on controlling climate and conserving and promoting natural heritage, resulting in job creation and reduced migration to urban areas (UNWTO, 2020b). Taking into consideration the SDG-13 goal of taking urgent action to combat climate change, future research could be undertaken in the area of green employment and green economy to have inclusive, sustainable growth. Due to the impact of climate change, the employment structure will change. New jobs and job families will form, while other traditional ones will vanish or become unsustainable. As a result, businesses will need to discover new ways to arrange labor and production. Future researchers could explore some of these areas and additionally study the impact of individual accountability and ownership on environment and climate change. Another potential research area could be cross-nation research and cooperation to control climate change, as no nation can succeed alone.

To control global warming and achieve sustainability, the United Nations introduced sustainable development goals (SDGs) in 2015. The focus points of the SDGs were fostering economic growth, controlling climate change, eliminating poverty, and saving the planet (UNWTO, 2015). Building sustainable goals has emerged as the solution to bringing down the detrimental effects of tourism. Since the introduction of SDGs in 2015, lots of research has been undertaken on measuring firm performance of sustainable goals with the help of sustainable indicators. This is reflected by “model” and “management” emerging as the motor themes for the time period of 2016–2020. “Indicators” help in measuring and comparing performance between different geographies and time periods in a bid to mitigate unsustainable tourism growth (Holden and Linnerud, 2007). Hence, indicators as a cluster have appeared as an emerging theme for research Figure 12

Figure 12.

Thematic map for time period between 2016 and 2019.

During the period of 2020–2021, the clusters that emerged in the motor themes are “governance,” “consequences,” “impact,” “hospitality,” and “challenges” (Figure 13). These attest to the fundamental changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Figure 13.

Thematic map for time period between 2020 and 2021.

The various emerging and constantly mutating strains of the virus impacted all countries and economies, calling for the need to reinvent the tourism industry. In the field of epidemiology and disease surveillance, “travel” has been identified as the core cause of the spread of new viral strains (Hon, 2013). The pandemic threat expanded exponentially due to the global transportation network that propelled the spread of pathogens (Labonté et al., 2011; Nicolaides et al., 2019; Pongsiri et al., 2009). Future research could be undertaken on the role of tourism in epidemiology and reducing its impact in worsening epidemics. It has implications for practitioners in terms of reshaping and transforming the tourism industry, giving way to nature tourism or health tourism as future avenues to be tapped.

The human action of cutting down trees to make facilities to support tourism and the interference with wildlife during the process have also been identified as some of the reasons that exacerbated the pandemic (Barlow et al., 2016; Lade et al., 2020). Industrialized food, which is also supported by tourism, is another reason for this spread (Hall and Gössling, 2013). Destination development has been hampered due to under-tourism and the pandemic (Ioannides and Gyimóthy, 2020). Research could be suggested to identify various causes of pandemics and their impact on human life and the environment in totality. Regarding statistics, a decline of 93 percent was observed in tourist arrivals in June 2020 compared to previous years. There was a plunge of 65 percent in international travel arrivals in the first half of 2020, and the economic cost of this plunge is estimated to be $440 million for international travel arrivals and $460 billion in export revenues (UNWTO, 2020a). Based on the radical shift the tourism sector has experienced, future research can focus on the various changes required in Human Resources processes and practices and their possible impacts.

It is well understood that touristification adversely affects the economic (Gössling, 2002; Nepal et al., 2019), environmental, and socio-cultural environment. Due to this irresponsible utilization of natural resources, over-tourism is detrimental to the local community, natural environment (De Haas, 2002; Diamantis, 1999; Hall and Lew, 2009), and traditional cultures (Bramwell and Lane, 1993). This leads to an increase in price, environmental degradation, climate change, and loss of traditional values (Cole, 2007a; Yang and Wall, 2009a). The onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted this in an unprecedented way. This brings us to a stage where there is an immediate need to rebuild and restrengthen tourism (United Nations, 2019). This urgently calls for industry stakeholders and policymakers to come together to put the economy and tourism sector back on a growth trajectory. Focusing on meeting sustainable development goals (SDGs) while simultaneously implementing policies that support sustainable and economically rewarding tourism is the need of the hour.

The tourism industry has been designing innovative products like creative tourism or alternate tourism, which could determine future directions to save the environment and encourage tourists to participate in sustainability. This will not only revitalize tourism but also enhance local travel destination well-being and sustainability by generating employment and income for locals who call the destination home (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020; Hoxie et al., 2012). Creative tourism may provide the opportunity for small-scale tourism with a focus on cultural values, inclusion of local stakeholders, and society.

Creative tourism may be beneficial in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) and result in sustainable cities and communities (SDG-11) as well as sustainable production and consumption (SDG-12) with a focus on sustainable tourism to promote local culture and create jobs (SDG-12.b). This can be done through spiritual tourism, nature tourism, rural tourism, adventure tourism, etc., as these activities focus on minimizing damage to the place and provide positive outcomes for the locals. The government could take certain initiatives to promote rural tourism (given the benefit of promoting local stakeholder engagement, thereby contributing to the goal of equality) in order to mitigate the adverse impact of over-tourism. Rural tourism could provide locals with a source of income, and also boost infrastructure development, community development, and women empowerment. Workshops and hobby classes like storytelling and painting for employees are also newly curated by organizations (Yan et al., 2021; Xia et al., 2021). This provides an opportunity to travelers to participate actively and pursue learning experiences through courses at tourist destinations (Richards & Raymond, 2000). In this, the tourists own the responsibility of leaving the destination better than before.

Industry and policymakers need to observe the new shift and curate tourism products and offerings in accordance with it. The focus now will be on how the carbon footprint of tourism can be reduced and how tourists can be compelled to contribute to improving sustainability (ETC and UNWTO, 2007). Success is only possible if industry stakeholders and policymakers come together, as the industry has to make it sellable and policymakers must make it accessible by incorporating the changes at the ground level. The key change in travel behavior would incorporate shifting people from busy cities to remote areas to continue working from home with support from their corporate employers. This has implications for holidaymakers and policymakers. Working holidays could be a new market opportunity for the industry that would include the small remote working segment (Gregor, 2021). Remote working will require a new kind of accommodation instead of traditional hotels and resorts. New products like camping could be designed, taking into consideration the challenges posed by the pandemic. This will provide a safe tourism mode to the industry as camping activities offer the flexibility to maintain social distancing and isolation. The government could facilitate the process by providing camping grounds to create the necessary infrastructure and save the environment.

Future research could be taken up on controlling climate, conserving and promoting natural heritage, creating new tourism jobs and opportunities, and reducing migration to urban areas (UNWTO, 2020b).

The continuous waves and mutations of the coronavirus dampened the prospects of conventional travel. Travel during the pandemic and post-pandemic are bound to be different, and the tourism industry will have to look for alternative mechanisms to understand consumer behavior and revive the industry. With remote work booming, working holidays in unsaturated rural or remote areas could be a new potential niche for the tourism industry. Policymakers and industry will have to join hands together to unleash the opportunity and create the innovative infrastructure needed to revive the industry to target new niches. By presenting the state of the current literature in the field and collating the learnings from it, our study paves the way for the advancement of the scholarship and policy initiatives to further the cause of sustainable tourism.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We would like to extend our gratitude toward our employers for providing us the infrastructure and resources to work in this research. The authors declare no conflict of interest. No funding was received for this work.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Gagan Deep Sharma

Irum Shahzadi

References

Alipour

Fatemi

Malazizi

(2020). Is edu-tourism a sustainable option? A case study of residents’ perceptions. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12(15), 5937. https://doi.org/10.3390/SU12155937

Razzaq

Haseeb

Mihardjo

L. W.

(2020). The role of technology innovation and people’s connectivity in testing environmental Kuznets curve and pollution heaven hypotheses across the Belt and Road host countries: New evidence from Method of Moments Quantile Regression. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 28(5), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10775-3

Arambiza

Painter

(2006). Biodiversity conservation and the quality of life of indigenous people in the Bolivian Chaco. Human Organization, 65(1), 20–34. https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.65.1.86y8rem7ugf8497u

Artal-Tur

Briones-Peñalver

A. J.

Bernal-Conesa

J. A.

Martínez-Salgado

(2019). Rural community tourism and sustainable advantages in Nicaragua. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 31. Online ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-05-2018-0429

Bagur-Femenías

Martí

Rocafort

(2015). Impact of sustainable management policies on tourism companies’ performance: The case of the metropolitan region of Madrid. Current Issues in Tourism, 18(4), 376–390. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2014.932757

Bamel

Pereira

Del Giudice

Temouri

(2020). The extent and impact of intellectual capital research: A two decade analysis. Journal of Intellectual Capital. Online ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-05-2020-0142

Barlow

Lennox

G. D.

Ferreira

Berenguer

Lees

A. C.

Nally

R. mac

Thomson

J. R.

Ferraz

S. F. D. B.

Louzada

Oliveira

V. H. F.

Parry

Ribeiro De Castro Solar

Vieira

I. C. G.

Aragaõ

L. E. O. C.

Begotti

R. A.

Braga

R. F.

Cardoso

T. M.

R. C. D. O.

Souza

C. M.

Gardner

T. A.

(2016). Anthropogenic disturbance in tropical forests can double biodiversity loss from deforestation. Nature, 535(7610), 144. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18326

Bertocchi

Camatti

Giove

van der Borg

(2020). Venice and overtourism: Simulating sustainable development scenarios through a tourism carrying capacity model. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12(2), 512. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12020512

Boley

B. B.

McGehee

N. G.

Tom Hammett

A. L.

(2017). Importance-performance analysis (IPA) of sustainable tourism initiatives: The resident perspective. Tourism Management, 58, 66–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2016.10.002

10.

Bramwell

(2011). Governance, the state and sustainable tourism: A political economy approach. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 19(4-5), 459–477. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2011.576765

11.

Bramwell

(2015). Theoretical activity in sustainable tourism research. Annals of Tourism Research, 54, 204–218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2015.07.005

12.

Bramwell

Lane

(1993). Sustainable tourism: An evolving global approach. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 1(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669589309450696

13.

Butler

(2018). Sustainable tourism in sensitive environments: AWolf in sheep’s clothing? Sustainability (Switzerland), 10(6), 1789. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10061789

14.

Butler

R. W.

(1991). Tourism, environment, and sustainable development. Environmental Conservation, 18, 201–209. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892900022104

15.

Byrd

E. T.

(2007). Stakeholders in sustainable tourism development and their roles: Applying stakeholder theory to sustainable tourism development. Tourism Review, 62(2), 6–13. https://doi.org/10.1108/16605370780000309

16.

Chan

Bhatta

(2013). Ecotourism planning and sustainable community development: Theoretical perspectives for Nepal. South Asian Journal of Tourism and Heritage.

17.

Chen

Lun

Yan

Hao

Weng

(2019). Discovering thematic change and evolution of utilizing social media for healthcare research. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 19(S2), 4. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-019-0757-4

18.

Cheung

K. S.

L. H.

(2019). Understanding visitor-resident relations in overtourism: Developing resilience for sustainable tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 27, 1197–1216. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2019.1606815

19.

Choi

H. C.

Murray

(2010). Resident attitudes toward sustainable community tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 18, 575–594. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669580903524852

20.

Choi

H. S. C.

Sirakaya

(2006). Sustainability indicators for managing community tourism. Tourism Management, 27, 1274–1289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2005.05.018

21.

Cole

(2007a). Beyond authenticity and commodification. Annals of Tourism Research, 34, 4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2007.05.004

22.

Cole

(2007b). Tourism, culture and development, tourism, culture and development. UNWTO. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781845410711

23.

Cortese

D’Ambrosio

Petracca

(2019). A possible synergy between culture and religion for the sustainability of tourism of Pompeii. Sustainability (Switzerland), 11(8), 2231. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11082231

24.

Cox

M. A. A.

Cox

T. F.

(2008). Multidimensional scaling BT - Handbook of data visualization. In Handbook of data visualization. Springer.

25.

De Haas

H. C.

(2002). Sustainability of small-scale ecotourism: The case of Niue, South Pacific. Current issues in tourism. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500208667927

26.

Diamantis

(1999). The concept of ecotourism: Evolution and trends. Current issues in tourism, 5(3), 319–337. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683509908667847

27.

Dimmock

Musa

(2015). Scuba diving tourism system: A framework for collaborative management and sustainability. Marine Policy, 54, 52–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2014.12.008

28.

Dvarskas

(2017). Dynamically linking economic models to ecological condition for coastal zone management: Application to sustainable tourism planning. Journal of Environmental Management, 188, 163–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2016.12.014

29.

Ertz

Sarigöllü

(2019). Assessing the potential of sustainable value chains in the collaborative economy. Sustainability (Switzerland), 11(390), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11020390

30.

ETC and UNWTO . (2007). Maximising marketing effectiveness – a report of the market intelligence group of the HANDBOOK on tourism market. UNWTO.

31.

European Commision. (2019). Corporate social responsibility, responsible business conduct, and business & human rights. European Commission, p. 32. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/industry/sustainability/corporate-social-responsibility_en

32.

Fermani

Sergi

M. R.

Carrieri

Crespi

Picconi

Saggino

(2020). Sustainable tourism and facilities preferences: The sustainable tourist stay scale (stss) validation. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12229767

33.

Font

English

Gkritzali

Tian

(Stella) (2021). Value co-creation in sustainable tourism: A service-dominant logic approach. Tourism Management, 82, 104200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2020.104200

34.

Gadgil

Berkes

Folke

(1993). Indigenous knowledge for biodiversity conservation. Ambio, 22, 151–156. https://doi.org/10.2307/4314060

35.

García-Gallo

M. D.

Jiménez-Naharro

Torres-García

Guadix-Martín

Giesecke

S. L.

(2021). Sustainability of Spanish tourism start-ups in the face of an economic crisis. Sustainability (Switzerland), 13, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042026

36.

Goffi

Cucculelli

Masiero

(2019). Fostering tourism destination competitiveness in developing countries: The role of sustainability. Journal of Cleaner Production, 209, 101–115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.10.208

37.

Gössling

(2002). Global environmental consequences of tourism. Global Environmental Change, 12, 4. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0959-3780(02)00044-4

38.

Gregor

(2021). Should you work (a little) on your holiday? The Economist. Available at: https://www.economist.com/business/2021/08/21/should-you-work-a-little-on-your-holiday

39.

Grilli

Tyllianakis

Luisetti

Ferrini

Turner

R. K.

(2021). Prospective tourist preferences for sustainable tourism development in Small Island Developing States. Tourism Management, 82, 104178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2020.104178

40.

Hall

(2011). Policy learning and policy failure in sustainable tourism governance: From first- and second-order to third-order change? Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 19, 55. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2011.555555

41.

Hall

C. M.

(2019). Constructing sustainable tourism development: The 2030 agenda and the managerial ecology of sustainable tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 27, 1044–1060. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2018.1560456

42.

Hall

C. M.

Gössling

(2013). Sustainable culinary systems: Local foods, innovation, tourism and hospitality, sustainable culinary systems: Local foods, innovation, tourism and hospitality. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203114070

43.

Hall

C. M.

Lew

A. A.

(2009). Understanding and managing tourism impacts: An integrated approach, understanding and managing tourism impacts: An integrated approach. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203875872

44.

Hardy

Beeton

R. J. S.

Pearson

(2002). Sustainable tourism: An overview of the concept and its position in relation to conceptualizations of tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 10, 475–496. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669580208667183

45.

(1999). Knowledge Discovery Through Co-Word Analysis (48). Library Trends.

46.

Higgins-Desbiolles

(2018a). Event tourism and event imposition: A critical case study from Kangaroo island, South Australia. Tourism Management, 64, 2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2017.08.002

47.

Higgins-Desbiolles

(2018b). Sustainable tourism: Sustaining tourism or something more? Tourism Management Perspectives, 25, 157–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2017.11.017

48.

Higgins-Desbiolles

(2020). The “war over-tourism”: Challenges to sustainable tourism in the tourism academy after COVID-19. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 29, 551–569. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2020.1803334

49.

Holden

Linnerud

(2007). The sustainable development area: Satisfying basic needs and safeguarding ecological sustainability. Sustainable Development, 15, 313. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.313

50.

Hon

K. L.

(2013). Severe respiratory syndromes: Travel history matters. Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease, 11(5), 285–287. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmaid.2013.06.005

51.

Hout

M. C.

Goldinger

S. D.

Ferguson

R. W.

(2013). The versatility of SpAM: A fast, efficient, spatial method of data collection for multidimensional scaling. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 142, 256–281. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028860

52.

Hoxie

Berkebile

Todd

J. A.

(2012). Stimulating regenerative development through community dialogue. Building Research and Information, 40, 546. https://doi.org/10.1080/09613218.2011.628546

53.

Hunter

(1997). Sustainable tourism as an adaptive paradigm. Annals of Tourism Research, 24, 850–867. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0160-7383(97)00036-4

54.

Hunter

C. J.

(1995). On the need to re-conceptualize sustainable tourism development. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 3(3), 155–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669589509510720

55.

Ibnou-Laaroussi

Rjoub

Wong

W. K.

(2020). ‘Sustainability of green tourism among international tourists and its influence on the achievement of green environment: Evidence from North Cyprus’, Sustainability (Switzerland). ST Alban-Anlage 66, CH-4052 Basel, Switzerland: MDPI, 12(14), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12145698

56.

Inskeep

(1988). Tourism planning: An emerging specialization. Journal of the American Planning Association, 54, 360–372. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944368808976497

57.

Ioannides

Gyimóthy

(2020). The COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity for escaping the unsustainable global tourism path. Tourism Geographies, 22, 1763445. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2020.1763445

58.

Jain

Sharma

G. D.

Mahendru

(2019). Can i sustain my happiness? A review, critique and research agenda for economics of happiness. Sustainability (Switzerland), 11, 1–36. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11226375

59.

Jørgensen

M. T.

McKercher

(2019). Sustainability and integration–the principal challenges to tourism and tourism research. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, 36, 905–916. https://doi.org/10.1080/10548408.2019.1657054

60.

Joun

H. J.

Kim

(2020). Productivity evaluation of tourism and culture for sustainable economic development: Analyzing South Korea’s metropolitan regions. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12(7), 912. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12072912

61.

Kato

Progano

R. N.

(2017). Spiritual (walking) tourism as a foundation for sustainable destination development: Kumano-kodo pilgrimage, Wakayama, Japan. Tourism Management Perspectives, 24, 243–251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2017.07.017

62.

Khan

Rehman

F. U.

Pypłacz

Khan

M. A.

Wiśniewska

Liczmańska-Kopcewicz

(2021). A dynamic linkage between financial development, energy consumption and economic growth: Evidence from an asymmetric and nonlinear ARDL model. Energies, 14(16), 5006. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14165006

63.

J. T. G.

(2001). Assessing progress of tourism sustainability. Annals of Tourism Research, 28, 817–820. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0160-7383(00)00070-0

64.

Koren-Lawrence

Collins-Kreiner

Israeli

(Hezi) (2020). The future of the past: Sustainable management of archaeological tourist sites - the case study of Israel. Tourism Management Perspectives, 35, 100700. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2020.100700

65.

T. G.

(2005). Development of a tourism sustainability assessment procedure: A conceptual approach. Tourism Management, 26, 431–445. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2003.12.003

66.

Labonté

Mohindra

Schrecker

(2011). The growing impact of globalization for health and public health practice. Annual Review of Public Health, 32, 263–283. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031210-101225

67.

Lade

S. J.

Steffen

de Vries

Carpenter

S. R.

Donges

J. F.

Gerten

Hoff

Newbold

Richardson

Rockström

(2020). Human impacts on planetary boundaries amplified by Earth system interactions. Nature Sustainability, 3, 119–128. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0454-4

68.

Lai

L. W. C.

(2020). Sustainable development of heritage conservation and tourism: A Hong Kong case study on colonial heritage. Sustainable Development, 28, 1181–1188. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2067

69.

Lapeyre

(2010). Community-based tourism as a sustainable solution to maximise impacts locally? The Tsiseb Conservancy case, Namibia. Development Southern Africa, 27, 757–772. https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835X.2010.522837

70.

Lee

T. H.

(2013). Influence analysis of community resident support for sustainable tourism development. Tourism Management, 34, 37–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2012.03.007

71.

Liu

Zhang

Wang

(2018). Measurement and prediction of regional tourism sustainability: An analysis of the Yangtze River economic zone, China. Sustainability (Switzerland), 10, 321. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10051321

72.

Liu

Jang

S. C.

(2020a). A model of tourists' civilized behaviors: Toward sustainable coastal tourism in China. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 16, 100437. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2020.100437

73.

Liu

Chin

W. L.

Nechita

Candrea

A. N.

(2020b). Framing film-induced tourism into a sustainable perspective from Romania, Indonesia and Malaysia. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12239910

74.

Living Planet Report . (2020). Living planet report 2020. In Bending the curve of biodiversity loss, Wwf. Available at: https://wwflac.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/living_planet_report_2020.pdf

75.

Long

N. T.

Nguyen

T. L.

(2018). Sustainable development of rural tourism in an giang province, Vietnam. Sustainability (Switzerland), 10, 953. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10040953

76.

Mahato

Pal

Ghosh

K. G.

(2020). Effect of lock-down amid COVID-19 pandemic on air quality of the megacity Delhi, India. Science of the Total Environment, 730, 139086. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139086

77.

Mandal

Pal

(2020). COVID-19 pandemic persuaded lockdown effects on environment over stone quarrying and crushing areas. Science of the Total Environment, 732, 139281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139281

78.

Miller

Twining-Ward

Bakker

Carbone

Duka

Farrell

Font

Jack

Tapper

(2005). Monitoring for a sustainable tourism transition: The challenge of developing and using indicators, monitoring for a sustainable tourism transition: The challenge of developing and using indicators. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.thr.6050034

79.

Moreno-Luna

Robina-Ramírez

Sánchez

M. S. O.

Castro-Serrano

(2021). Tourism and sustainability in times of covid-19: The case of Spain. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041859

80.

Nelson

J. G.

(1994). The spread of ecotourism: Some planning implications. Environmental Conservation, 21(3), 248–255. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892900033233

81.

Nelson

J. G.

Serafin

(2013). National parks and protected areas: Keystones to conservation and sustainable development. In NATO, ASI Book series 40. Springer-Verlag.

82.

Nepal

Indra al Irsyad

Nepal

S. K.

(2019). Tourist arrivals, energy consumption and pollutant emissions in a developing economy–implications for sustainable tourism. Tourism Management, 72, 25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2018.08.025

83.

Nicolaides

Avraam

Cueto-Felgueroso

González

M. C.

Juanes

(2019). Hand-hygiene mitigation strategies against global disease spreading through the air transportation network. bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/530618

84.

Nita

(2019). Empowering impact assessments knowledge and international research collaboration - a bibliometric analysis of Environmental Impact Assessment Review journal. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 78, 106283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2019.106283

85.

Okazaki

(2008). A community-based tourism model: Its conception and use. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 16, 511–529. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669580802159594

86.

Olya

H. G. T.

Alipour

Gavilyan

(2018). Different voices from community groups to support sustainable tourism development at Iranian world heritage sites: Evidence from Bisotun. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 26, 1728–1748. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2018.1511718

87.

Orams

M. B.

(1995). Towards a more desirable form of ecotourism. Tourism Management, 16(1), 3–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/0261-5177(94)00001-Q

88.

Pan

X. M.

Dossou

T. A. M.

(2020). The relationship between tourism and sustainable economic growth in the Republic of Benin. Current Issues in Tourism, 23, 785–794. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2019.1676206

89.

Parks

Allen

(2009). The development of a framework for studying ecotourism. International Journal of Management, 26(1), 89–98.

90.

Passafaro

(2020). Attitudes and tourists’ sustainable behavior: An overview of the literature and discussion of some theoretical and methodological issues. Journal of Travel Research, 59, 579–601. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287519851171

91.

Pattnaik

Hassan

M. K.

Kumar

Paul

(2020). Trade credit research before and after the global financial crisis of 2008 - a bibliometric overview. Research in International Business and Finance, 54, 101287. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ribaf.2020.101287

92.

Pearce

P. L.

(2018). Limiting overtourism; the desirable new behaviours of the smart tourist. T-Forum.

93.

Pongsiri

M. J.

Roman

Ezenwa

V. O.

Goldberg

T. L.

Koren

H. S.

Newbold

S. C.

Ostfeld

R. S.

Pattanayak

S. K.

Salkeld

D. J.

(2009). Biodiversity loss affects global disease ecology. BioScience. https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2009.59.11.6

94.

Protected Areas, National Parks and Sustainable Future, 2019; UNWTO World Tourism Barometer and Statistical Annex August/September 2020, 2020.

95.

Putkuri

Lindholm

Peltonen

(2014). State of the environment in Finland 2013, SYKE publications 1. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10138/42691

96.

Rasoolimanesh

S. M.

Jaafar

Kock

Ahmad

A. G.

(2017). The effects of community factors on residents’ perceptions toward World Heritage Site inscription and sustainable tourism development. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 25, 198–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2016.1195836

97.

Razzaq

Sharif

Ahmad

Jermsittiparsert

(2021a). Asymmetric role of tourism development and technology innovation on carbon dioxide emission reduction in the Chinese economy: Fresh insights from QARDL approach. Sustainable Development, 29(1), 176–193. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2139

98.

Razzaq

Sharif

Aziz

Irfan

Jermsittiparsert

(2020). Asymmetric link between environmental pollution and COVID-19 in the top ten affected states of US: A novel estimations from quantile-on-quantile approach. Environmental Research, 191, 110189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2020.110189

99.

Razzaq

Sharif

Najmi

Tseng

M. L.

Lim

M. K.

(2021). Dynamic and causality interrelationships from municipal solid waste recycling to economic growth, carbon emissions and energy efficiency using a novel bootstrapping autoregressive distributed lag. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 166, 105372. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105372

100.

Rehman

F. U.

Sohag

(2021). The response of wheat productivity to climate patterns: Evidence from Pakistani districts. Climate Change Economics, 12(4), 2150009. https://doi.org/10.1142/S2010007821500093

101.

Richard Denman

J. D.

(2004). Tourism and poverty alleviation recommendations for action (English version). In Tourism and poverty alleviation recommendations for action (English version), tourism and poverty alleviation recommendations for action (English version). World Tourism Organization. https://doi.org/10.18111/9789284407019

102.

Richards

Raymond

C. R.

(2000). ‘Creative Tourism’, Atlas News, 23, 16–20.

103.

Rodríguez-Soler

Uribe-Toril

De Pablo Valenciano

(2020). Worldwide trends in the scientific production on rural depopulation, a bibliometric analysis using bibliometrix R-tool. Land Use Policy, 97, 104787. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104787

104.

Roxas

F. M. Y.

Rivera

J. P. R.

Gutierrez

E. L. M.

(2020). Mapping stakeholders’ roles in governing sustainable tourism destinations. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 45, 387. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2020.09.005

105.

Ruhanen

Weiler

Moyle

B. D.

McLennanlee

C. J.

(2015). Trends and patterns in sustainable tourism research: A 25-year bibliometric analysis. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 23, 517–535. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2014.978790

106.

Saarinen

(2014). Critical sustainability: Setting the limits to growth and responsibility in tourism. Sustainability (Switzerland), 6, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.3390/su6010001

107.

Saxena

Mowla

M. M.

Chowdhury

(2020). Spiritual capital (Adhyatmik Shompatti) - a key driver of community well-being and sustainable tourism in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 28, 1576–1602. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2020.1745216

108.

Segger

M. C. C.

Phillips

F. K.

(2015). Indigenous traditional knowledge for sustainable development: The biodiversity convention and plant treaty regimes. Journal of Forest Research, 20, 430–437. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10310-015-0498-x

109.

Sharma

G. D.

Paul

Srivastava

Yadav

Mendy

Sarker

Bansal

(2021a). Neuroentrepreneurship: An integrative review and research agenda. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 00, 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/08985626.2021.1966106

110.

Sharma

G. D.

Thomas

Paul

(2021b). Reviving tourism industry post-COVID-19: A resilience-based framework. Tourism Management Perspectives, 37, 100786. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2020.100786

111.

Sharma

G. D.

Tiwari

A. K.

Erkut

Mundi

H. S.

(2021c). Exploring the nexus between non-renewable and renewable energy consumptions and economic development: Evidence from panel estimations. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 146, 111152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2021.111152

112.

Sharma

G. D.

Tiwari

A. K.

Jain

Yadav

Srivastava

(2021d). COVID-19 and environmental concerns: A rapid review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 148, 111239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2021.111239

113.

Sharpley

(2020). Tourism, sustainable development and the theoretical divide: 20 years on. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 28, 1932–1946. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2020.1779732

114.

Shunnaq

Schwab

W. A.

Reid

M. F.

(2008). Community development using a sustainable tourism strategy: A case study of the Jordan river valley touristway. International Journal of Tourism Research, 10, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.620

115.

Sims

(2009). Food, place and authenticity: Local food and the sustainable tourism experience. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 17, 321–336. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669580802359293

116.

Srivastava

Sharma

G. D.

Srivastava

A. K.

(2019). Human brain and financial behavior: A neurofinance perspective. International Journal of Ethics and Systems, 35, 485–503. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOES-02-2019-0036

117.

Srivastava

Sharma

G. D.

Srivastava

A. K.

Kumaran

S. S.

(2020). What’s in the brain for us: A systematic literature review of neuroeconomics and neurofinance. Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, 12, 413–435. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRFM-10-2019-0127

118.

Streimikiene

Svagzdiene

Jasinskas

Simanavicius

(2021). Sustainable tourism development and competitiveness: The systematic literature review. Sustainable Development, 29, 259–271. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2133

119.

Tzeng

W. H.

(2008). Multidimensional scaling for large genomic data sets. BMC Bioinformatics, 9, 179. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-9-179

120.

UNCED . (1992). Earth Summit'92. The UN conference on environment and development, reproduction. United nations. Available at: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/english/Agenda21.pdf

121.

United Nations. (2019). Policy brief -COVID-19 and transforming tourism (pp. 1–27). United Nations publication, (August). Available at: https://www.un.org/es/events/tourismday/

122.

UNWTO. (2015). Understanding tourism: Basic glossary | world tourism organization UNWTO. UNWTO (2009): Definition of tourist and tourism 2008.

123.

UNWTO. (2020a). Impact assessment of the COVID-19 outbreak on international tourism. UGC Care Group I Listed Journal, 10.

124.

UNWTO. (2020b). UNWTO world tourism Barometer and statistical Annex, December 2020. UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, 18(7), 1–36. https://doi.org/10.18111/wtobarometereng.2020.18.1.7

125.

Van

N. T. T.

Vrana

Duy

N. T.

Minh

D. X. H.

Dzung

P. T.

Mondal

S. R.

Das

(2020). The role of human-machine interactive devices for post-COVID-19 innovative sustainable tourism in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12229523

126.

van Eck

N. J.

Waltman

(2010). Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics, 84, 523–538. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3

127.

Waligo

V. M.

Clarke

Hawkins

(2013). Implementing sustainable tourism: A multi-stakeholder involvement management framework. Tourism Management, 36, 342–353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2012.10.008

128.

Wang

Pan

S. Y.

R. Y.

Wang

Wei

Y. M.

(2014). An overview of climate change vulnerability: A bibliometric analysis based on Web of science database. Natural Hazards, 74, 1649–1666. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-014-1260-y

129.

Weaver

Tang

Zhao

(2020). Facilitating sustainable tourism by endogenization: China as exemplar. Annals of Tourism Research, 81, 102890. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2020.102890

130.

Weaver

D. B.

(2012). Organic, incremental and induced paths to sustainable mass tourism convergence. Tourism Management, 33, 1030–1037. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2011.08.011

131.

Xia

Doğan

Shahzad

Adedoyin

F. F.

Popoola

Bashir

M. A.

(2021). An empirical investigation of tourism-led growth hypothesis in the European countries: Evidence from augmented mean group estimator. Port Econ J, 21(4), 9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10258-021-00193-9

132.

Yan

Shah

M. I.

Sharma

G. D.

Chopra

Fareed

Shahzad

(2021). Can tourism sustain itself through the pandemic: Nexus between tourism, COVID-19 cases and air quality spread in the ‘pineapple state’ Hawaii. Curr. Issues Tour, 0, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2021.1965553

133.

Yang

Wall

(2009a). Ethnic tourism: A framework and an application. Tourism Management, 30, 8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2008.09.008

134.

Yang

Wall

(2009b). Authenticity in ethnic tourism: Domestic tourists’ perspectives. Current Issues in Tourism, 12(3), 235. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500802406880

135.

Zambrano-Monserrate

M. A.

Ruano

M. A.

Sanchez-Alcalde

(2020). Indirect effects of COVID-19 on the environment. Science of the Total Environment, 728, 138813. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138813

136.

Zapata

M. J.

Hall

C. M.

Lindo

Vanderschaeghe

(2011). Can community-based tourism contribute to development and poverty alleviation? Lessons from Nicaragua. Current Issues in Tourism, 14, 200. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2011.559200

137.

Zenker

Kock

(2020). The coronavirus pandemic - a critical discussion of a tourism research agenda. Tourism Management, 81, 104164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2020.104164

138.

Zmyślony

Leszczyński

Waligóra

Alejziak

(2020). The sharing economy and sustainability of Urban destinations in the (over)tourism context: The social capital theory perspective. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12062310

139.

Zolfani

S. H.

Sedaghat

Makndoon

Zavadskas

E. K.

(2015). Sustainable tourism: A comprehensive literature review on frameworks and applications. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istrazivanja, 28, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2014.995895

140.

Zupic

Čater

(2015). Bibliometric methods in management and organization. Organizational Research Methods, 18, 429–472. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428114562629

From Over-Tourism to Under-Tourism via COVID-19: Lessons for Sustainable Tourism Management

Abstract

Keywords

Research Highlights

Introduction

Data and Brief Methodology

Bibliometric Results

General Descriptions of Publications

Social Structure of Publication Corpus

Intellectual Structure of the Publications

The Conceptual Structure of the Publication Corpus

Discussion and Concluding Remarks

2008–2015

2016–2019

2020–2021

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iDs

References