Sustainable Tourism: Introduction
to the Thematic Block
Ksenija Vodeb
Guest Editor
University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies – Turistica, Slovenia
ksenija.vodeb@fts.upr.si
Helena Nemec Rudež
Guest Editor
University of Primorska, Faculty of Tourism Studies – Turistica, Slovenia
helena.nemec@fts.upr.si
https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.14.3-5
Despite three decades of active and intense discussion
of tourism sustainability in academia and in tourism
practice, recent references have shown that there is
still much room for progress in this research area. At
this very moment of a new milestone for tourism and
society as a whole, new circumstances have arisen that
change our understanding and suggest new choices
that shift the concept of sustainable tourism as we
have known it. The pandemic can be seen as one of
the challenges, and it offers an opportunity to rethink
our understanding of sustainable tourism (Persson-
Fischer & Liu, 2021). But, even before the pandemic, it
was clear that sustainable tourism, as a fluid and com-
plex paradigm, urgently requires a systematic shift in
comprehension. It therefore seems timely to review
the progress of this tourism development concept and
explore its possible future directions (Nunkoo & See-
tanah, 2019).
Sustainable tourism is now considered the domi-
nant development paradigm in tourism research (Ru-
hanen et al., 2015; Bramwell & Lane, 2012), but it is
rather inconstant and dynamic, which requires a pre-
cise, continuous and appropriate approach. Indeed,
there is a plethora of relevant academic papers on this
topic, providing valuable knowledge and understand-
ing of the concept, as well as strategies and instru-
ments for sustainable tourism implementation. An ex-
ample of sustainable tourism indicators, designed by
theWorld Economic Forum, is the Global Sustainable
Competitiveness Index (gsci), which was developed
in 2012 as a subsection of the earlier well known and
acknowledged Tourism and Travel Competitiveness
Index (ttci). On the other hand, there still persists a
critical gap between the theory and practice of sustain-
ability in tourism. Moreover, the prevailing economic
indicators used by the United Nations World Travel
Organization (unwto) and many other tourism or-
ganisations (national, regional, and local), profession-
als and decision makers with a mindset that sustain-
ability is merely an environmental issue, show how
incomplete our knowledge and awareness of sustain-
able tourism is. Furthermore, recent social and tech-
nological changes in our society pose a great challenge
and open new questions that need to be addressed and
answered.
Ruhanen et al. (2019) investigated how research
on sustainable tourism has evolved in the more than
thirty years since the publication of the Brundtland re-
port. They show that the field of research has matured
over the past five years to the point where empha-
sis on climate change, modelling, values, behaviour
and theoretical advancement in sustainable tourism
have become important. Budeanu et al. (2015) pointed
out the problem of low or even lack of criticality in
sustainable tourism research and suggested the need
for research contributions to improve adaptability to
Academica Turistica, Year 14, No. 1, June 2021 | 3
Ksenija Vodeb and Helena Nemec Rudež Sustainable Tourism
respond to and manage change under unpredictable
circumstances. In a nutshell, they believe that the re-
search conducted on this topic needs to be more effec-
tive in the future, and provide tourism practitioners
with concrete solutions and tools. Additionally, they
assigned to tourism sustainability the transformative
power of the wider society due to its interrelation-
ships with other spheres of human life and the eco-
nomic sectors. They concluded that (p. 16) the aca-
demic world of tourism is a relatively small commu-
nity and certainly one that is disproportionately tiny
in relation to the size of the sector and its impacts. It
would be necessary to bring additional academic ca-
pacity to the subject in order to achieve a strong out-
come that could help to develop a solid ground for its
development and progress.
Sharpley (2020) is very critical towards tourism
and argues that its developmental role, unequal acces-
sibility, degree of dependency, overconsumption and
overproduction are the biggest challenges at the global
level. The only solution he sees to reduce the use of fos-
sil fuel in tourism in the future is to reduce air travel.
Zhang and Chan (2020) problematised the vague con-
ceptualisation of sustainable tourism and pointed it
out as the reason for its ineffectiveness and under-
performance in practice. They believe that sustain-
able development is a resource-concerned ethic, which
should be concerned with resources and human needs
in each specific context. Conversely, Streimikiene et
al. (2021, p. 265) sound much more optimistic by con-
cluding that competitiveness, environmental and so-
cial issues of sustainable tourism development can be
addressed together by implementing innovations and
fostering sustainable consumption principles. Provid-
ing innovative tourism services to tourists, achieving a
competitive advantage by contributing to welfare, sat-
isfying the needs of local communities, and addressing
sustainable development priorities of tourism destina-
tions are achievable goals.
Whether this shift in the current comprehension
of sustainable development lies in the responsible be-
haviour and actions of stakeholders, or in the bal-
anced performance of these actions and collabora-
tion between stakeholders, sustainable tourism as it
was defined and understood three decades ago is no
longer relevant due to the maturation of the concept.
The collection of papers in this thematic block in-
spired by the above discussion brings together selected
papers presented at the International Tourism Con-
ference Encuentros 2020 – Sustainable Destinations:
Walking the Sustainable Talk. To ensure an even more
diverse selection of articles on sustainable tourism, the
call for papers was disseminated to the wider research
community after the conference. Afterwards, many
interesting manuscripts were submitted for publica-
tion consideration, but the guest editors had to limit
the number of papers selected in order to proceedwith
the publication process for the most theoretically and
empirically high-quality papers.
This thematic block contains six articles authored
by scholars fromdiverse geographic and research back-
grounds addressing key issues in sustainable tourism:
community participation, resident quality of life, icm
principles of an island destination, climate change, en-
vironmentally sustainable practices in hospitality and
sustainable tourism competitiveness.
The first research paper, ‘Community Participation
in Sustainable Valorisation of Cultural Heritage: The
Case of the Municipality of Vrsar’ by Kristina Afrić
Rakitovac, Nataša Urošević and Nikola Vojnović, il-
lustrates the role of community participation as an
essential principle of sustainable tourism. It explores
the perspective of the local community in relation to
the sustainable valorisation of cultural and archaeo-
logical heritage and finds that local stakeholders are
interested in the sustainable development of cultural
tourism that opposes the mass tourism that currently
prevails. Furthermore, it confirms the aspiration of
the community to be actively involved and informed
in participatory models of heritage management. The
findings of the research point to the need for knowl-
edge capacity building and awareness raising among
stakeholders and destination management in order to
optimise the sustainable valorisation of heritage re-
sources.
The example of sustainable development of an is-
land destination based on iqm principles by Aleksan-
dra Krajnović, Ivica Zdrilić and Nikolina Miletić ex-
plores its extent and factors influencing it on the Island
of Pag among key tourism stakeholders. The research
4 | Academica Turistica, Year 14, No. 1, June 2021
Ksenija Vodeb and Helena Nemec Rudež Sustainable Tourism
findings show unsatisfactory conditions of sustainable
development due to mass tourism, extreme season-
ality, excessive tourism construction and unbalanced
development. The situation urgently calls for profes-
sional destination management.
The article titled ‘A Destination’s Social Sustain-
ability: Linking Tourism Development to Residents’
Quality of Life’ by colleagues from Turistica, namely
Emil Juvan, Eva Podovšovnik, Miha Lesjak and Jas-
mina Jurgec, examines residents’ quality of life as a
fundamental aspect of sustainable tourism develop-
ment. The results show that interaction with tourists
can play a more important role in life satisfaction than
the level of tourism development. Besides this, the re-
sults indicate that neither the level of tourism develop-
ment nor the interactions with tourists predict the life
satisfaction of hosts and their emotional well-being.
The authors highlight that achieving social sustain-
ability is significantly context dependent and suggest a
mixed methodological approach for further research,
combining a quantitative and qualitative approach.
Tourismmanagement beliefs and attitudes towards
climate change are addressed by Aleksandar Racz,
Dora Smolčić Jurdana and Zvonimira Šverko Grdić,
colleagues from Croatia. They point out that signif-
icant change in sustainable development is possible
by understanding attitudes and beliefs of managers
in order to manage the risks and opportunities for
change in unsustainable practices. The research find-
ings have shown stronger pro-ecological attitudes and
higher levels of ecological awareness regarding climate
change among female managers, with tertiary educa-
tion, greater professional experience and environmen-
tally active individuals.
From the other side of the world comes ‘A Study
of Barriers of Environmentally Sustainable Practices
in the Hotel Businesses in Punjab, India: Preliminary
Findings’ by Baljit Kaur, with the aim of exploring
the barriers of environmentally sustainable practices
(esps) in the area of hotel business. The issue of sus-
tainability examined from the perspective of the hotel
industry points to the need for information sharing
and environmental awareness between policy makers
and managers, changing conventional work practices,
developing positive environmental attitudes, strict en-
vironmental legislation, and involving top manage-
ment in implementation strategies.
References
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Nunkoo, R., & Seetanah, B. (2019). Innovation in sustainable
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