Introduction to the Handbook of Innovation for Sustainable Tourism

Abstract

This comprehensive Handbook offers conceptual, empirical and policy contributions from international scholars concerning innovation in tourism for sustainability. Tourism innovation for 21st century competitiveness, and approaches to advancing environmental and social outcomes, are central to the volume. Innovation is a way to address the grand challenges of our time, be it cutting greenhouse gas emissions, providing clean energy, ensuring food and water security, addressing health and development challenges, or protecting the environment. This is critical in the light of intensifying climate change, environmental degradation and pressure on host communities. While the innovative drive of tourism enterprises to remain competitive within a global market environment is well-established in the literature, this volume seeks to broaden the focus and extend the debates. This volume considers a broad range of innovations, along with aspects of and approaches to innovation in tourism, to enhance sustainability. The contributors stress the need for innovation to tackle grand challenges. Greater efforts, accordingly, are required to stimulate systems change, scale innovation practices and consider social dimensions to promote inclusive innovation and tourism. Debates regarding human values, the public good, collective action, governance and the important role of policy are also put forward. Contributors range from tourism thought leaders and established scholars of sustainable tourism through to emerging researchers committed to studying innovation for sustainable tourism. Contributors reflect critically on issues pertaining to tourism and sustainability and unpack innovation issues at the tourism firm level, destination level, including place-based perspectives, as well as attending to system-level matters of environmental and social innovation in tourism. Action towards sustainability in tourism is underscored at the policy, planning, and personal level. This Handbook is critical for tourism studies researchers at all levels including those in tourism management and tourism geography. It is also an invaluable resource for practitioners and policy makers, not-for-profit organizations and consultants concerned with promoting sustainable tourism along with embedding new and improved ways of moving towards sustainability.