Abstract
Sustainability of tourism destinations has become the main focus in planning and managing tourism development. Despite existing legislation and an institutional framework to safeguard balanced tourism growth, many destinations fail to properly address it. So far, studies are limited in exploring sustainable tourism impacts from a policy perspective. This study follows previous ones in using the triple bottom line sustainability approach to define tourism impacts. It argues, in particular, for a nexus between understanding of policy perception and sustainability, and it applies this to tourist destinations in Serbia to determine whether they are operating sustainably. For this purpose, the data were collected using a combination of multiple methods, involving interviews with policymakers and content analysis of strategic documents. This study further suggests a model that assesses the extent of the sustainability of tourist destinations. The results illustrate the importance of understanding policy perceptions in shaping and facilitating sustainability and informing policy enablers on how to improve and reform current tourism development. The model can be adopted and applied to any tourist destination facing an inevitable need to re-shape their tourism development plans and policies, while the implications address the need to build a participative policy approach to sustainable tourism development.
Highlights
The concept of sustainable development emerged from environmental concerns within the activities of the United Nations, reflected in the World Charter for Nature [1] and Agenda 21 [2]
They were identified as the main policymakers for fostering an environment for sustainable development of tourist destinations
This study examined the perceptions of policy enablers and explored the main challenges for tourist destinations in terms of sustainability
Summary
The concept of sustainable development emerged from environmental concerns within the activities of the United Nations, reflected in the World Charter for Nature [1] and Agenda 21 [2]. Sustainable development as a concept incorporates social, ecological, and economic aspects, outlining the necessity of their optimization to meet 17 sustainable development goals with 169 targets of the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 [10]. Achieving all this has been often hampered by some trade-offs and different interpretations in favor of economic growth, at the expense of social well-being and ecological viability [11]. This study follows previous findings in using the established three mainstream pillars of sustainability (socio-cultural, environmental, and economic) to define tourism impacts It adds to the literature gap by assessing the level of tourist destinations’ sustainability from a policy perspective. It is important to assess this due to the manner of progress and to direct and monitor policies towards sustainable development
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