Developing a Competitive and Sustainable Destination of the Future: Clusters and Predictors of Successful National-Level Destination Governance across Destination Life-Cycle

Tourism towards Sustainability and Innovation: A Systematic Literature Review

In this paper, we analyze the progress of tourism towards sustainability and innovation through a systematic literature review summarizing the last five years of research strictly focused on innovation and sustainability applied to tourism. This research comprises a range of theories, practices, methods, and results pursuing innovation and sustainability across different levels, stages, and drivers, and in many tourism contexts. Wide, in-depth, and structured analysis, evaluation, and examination (using the PRISMA and VOSviewer tools) of a final sample of 50 scholarly papers from 27 journals, published between 2017 and the first quarter of 2021, were undertaken. Current publications emphasize qualitative, quantitative, and mixed research methods, as well as statistical and econometric methods, such as descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and structural equation modeling. This study categorizes the four major topics identified, sustainability, innovation, sustainable development, and sustainable tourism, which comprised the contextual dimensions and relevant stages of the subject areas examined. This systematic literature review highlights advances and the significantly increasing overall number of papers over recent years. Currently, sustainability is in a more advanced state compared to innovation. The outcomes highlight that the indicators of sustainability and innovation still need further analysis within the tourism context. However, more concrete process indicators are needed for continuous improvement of the front-end of innovation and sustainable tourism. The results help in better understanding the sustainability and innovation process as applied to tourism. In particular, this study explores further direct linkages between sustainability and innovation and tourism, discussing and providing new future directions aligned with the closing remarks as well as a strategic agenda for future action post-COVID-19.

Nature Tourism on the Colombian—Ecuadorian Amazonian Border: History, Current Situation, and Challenges

Global conflicts can severely affect a nation’s tourism activities. Tourism can also be seriously affected by health problems such as epidemics or pandemics. It is important to establish strategies to be prepared for adverse situations. The objective of this study focused on analyzing nature tourism from a post-conflict and post-COVID-19 situation in the Amazonian border of Colombia (Department of Putumayo) and Ecuador (Province of Sucumbíos), which will contribute to establishing future strategic management scenarios. In order to respond to this objective, a systematic bibliographic review was carried out, accompanied by fieldwork (interviews). The results indicate that in the face of adverse situations, the tourism industry has the capacity to be resilient. The success of its recovery will be directly proportional to its capacity to create policies and strategies that allow it to take advantage of natural resources and turn them into an opportunity for the socioeconomic development of its population.

Sustainable Travel Decision-Making of Europeans: Insights from a Household Survey

The purpose of this study is to research the antecedents of the sustainable travel decision-making of European travelers and thereby identify important lessons for the transition towards sustainable travel and tourism. The study is based on data collected through a representative survey, conducted in five European countries, with a sample of n = 5024 respondents. The results of descriptive statistics, EFA (Exploratory Factor Analysis) and FA (Factor Analysis) are presented in order to explore sustainable travel decision-making through environmental (policy-related and personal) attitudes and travel mode decision priorities in the European context. Furthermore, the study provides new evidence regarding the under-researched phenomenon of the attitude–behavior gap by presenting a model for the sustainability-oriented decision-making of travelers, including attitudes and travel mode priorities as antecedents. The results confirm the existence of moral licensing in travel decision-making, thereby extending the relevance of this theory into travel and tourism, which has not been done before. The denial of environmental issues is also being researched as regards its interaction with positive environmental attitudes, environmental travel mode priorities and non-environmental travel priorities, thereby advancing our understanding of the interplay between these categories. The interplay between the four categories furthers our understanding of the perplexity of travelers in terms of sustainable travel decision-making.

Social Aspects of Tourism Policy in the European Union. The Example of Poland and Slovakia

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the European Union tourism policy has been increasingly focused on initiatives in the field of social tourism, which are one of the ways of achieving sustainable development in the European tourism economy. Most of the research projects that have so far been conducted in the field have focused on the benefits for its participants (subjective one: Children and youths, seniors, disabled people, people (families) with low incomes and/or unemployed, big families). However, there is a lack of research on the analysis of the place of social aspects of tourism in the general socio-economic policy of the state and, in a detailed aspect, in the sectoral policy represented by tourism policy, as well as its potential impact on the development of the national economy and meeting tourism needs of the society. The authors tried to fill this research gap in this study. The aim of the study is to differentiate the issues related to the social aspects of tourism policy from the entire socio-economic policy pursued in the European Union and selected member states (Poland and Slovakia). The article is of a theoretical–analytical–conceptual nature. Empirical research, due to the nature of its issues, was conducted with the use of qualitative research methods. The results of the conducted research showed that activities in the field of social tourism policy are conditioned by organizational solutions for the entities that undertake them, as well as economic ones, especially in the field of financing. Moreover, they made it possible to propose the concept of a model social tourism policy with an indication of its place in the European policy on the basis of the past and future EU financial perspectives.

Evaluating Residents’ Perceptions of Nature-Based Tourism with a Factor-Cluster Approach

The purpose of the research presented here was to empirically assess resident perceptions of tourism development around the Changbai Mountain Biosphere Reserve (CMBR), a protected area straddling the China and North Korea border. Several theoretical approaches to the assessment of local resident attitudes towards tourism were reviewed and integrated into a novel factor-cluster assessment of residents in Erdaobaihe, the community most adjacent to CMBR. This analysis quantitatively grouped residents based on their perceptions of tourism’s economic, social, cultural, and environmental consequences for the town. An exploratory factor analysis of resident perceptual items first revealed six perception domains, and a subsequent cluster analysis then identified four distinct groups of residents based on these perceptions. A descriptive profile of each cluster and the significant differences among clusters are provided. Advancing our theoretical understanding of resident perspectives of tourism development, this cluster-based segmentation approach, demonstrated here, holds much promise for elaborating on the many ways that residents respond to new and long-standing forms of tourism in their communities. These theoretical and methodological contributions will be applicable to scholars as well as tourism practitioners and policy makers.

Improving the Management of Tourist Destinations: A New Approach to Strategic Management at the DMO Level by Integrating Lean Techniques

Destination management organizations have a key role to play in the governance of tourism destinations, in managing destination networks and in ensuring good cooperation between stakeholders. Although, destination management organizations (DMOs) are atypical organizations, their operations are evaluated according to their organizational efficiency and effectiveness. This study aims to propose a framework to improve the management of the tourist destination through an innovative approach that interconnects strategic management and Lean techniques to increase efficiency and productivity in operational processes, organizational efficiency and effectiveness at the DMO level. The framework developed in this study interconnects the analysis of the internal environment through the Value Chain and the Lean Six Sigma methods identified to be suitable for application in the management of the tourist destination. Testing of the practical application of this framework was done for Association for the Promotion and Development of Tourism (APDT), which is the DMO that ensures the management of the tourist destination of Brasov, Romania. The research contributes to the optimization of the processes at the DMO’s level. The framework developed in this study can be implemented by practitioners to improve the management of the tourist destination. The paper also offers future research directions.

Determinants of Residents’ Word-of-Mouth Behaviour and Support for Tourism

This research explores residents’ support for tourism by introducing—for the first time—the variable of residents’ word-of-mouth intention. The tested model proposes that residents’ support for tourism is influenced by residents’ word-of-mouth and tourism benefits; the model also examines the impacts of community attachment and community involvement on the benefits of tourism. The relationship between tourism benefits and residents’ word-of-mouth is the most significant indication of the tested model, followed by the linkage between tourism benefits and support for tourism. Besides this, the positive and significant effect of residents’ word-of-mouth on their support for tourism has been proven. The results stress the need for increased focus on the benefits of tourism by increasing community attachment, as they reveal that more attached residents lead to more positive perceptions of the benefits of tourism, consequently having a higher effect on their word-of-mouth intention and support for tourism.

Airbnb Is Customers’ Choice: Empirical Findings from a Survey

The main objective of this paper is to identify the incentives (strengths) that attract tourists to use the Airbnb platform. Moreover, Airbnb tourists’ expectations are compared to the services provided by hotels in order to assess their possible weaknesses. Via a quantitative survey that includes the exploration of the knowledge and use of this platform, a comparative analysis of the levels of agreement, along with a disagreement with the various incentives, are identified in order to highlight how important the practical factors for Airbnb’s choice are. The results show that the hotel industry is actually exposed to Airbnb’s existence and clearly disputes the statement as to whether Aibnb complements or just competes with traditional accommodations.

Determinants of the Propensity for Innovation among Entrepreneurs in the Tourism Industry

Tourism’s increasing share of Gross Domestic Product throughout the world, its impact on employment and its continuous growth justifies the interest it raises amongst entrepreneurs and public authorities. However, this growth coexists with intense competition; as a result of which, tourism companies must continuously innovate in order to survive and grow. This is evident in the diversification of tourism products and destinations, the improvement of business processes and the incorporation of new technologies for intermediation, amongst other examples. This paper expounds on the factors that explain the propensity for innovation amongst tourism entrepreneurs and it may help governments to promote innovation that is based on those determining factors. The hypotheses are tested using a logistic regression on 699 international tourism entrepreneurs, taken from the 2014 Global Adult Population Survey of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor project. The propensity for innovation amongst tourism entrepreneurs has a statistically significant relationship to gender, age, level of education and informal investments in previous businesses.