Peace through tourism: Critical reflections on the intersections between peace, justice, sustainable development and tourism

Abstract

United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 focuses on fostering inclusive, just and peaceful societies to ensure sustainable development. This can be an important catalyst to sustainable tourism and draws needed attention to the value of peace through tourism thinking. We might ask by what means could we address structural injustices in tourism and additionally harness tourism for greater inclusivity, justice and sustainability? Peace through tourism analyses could benefit from engagement with peace studies thinking on peace with justice, issues of violence, frameworks for fostering positive peace, peace pedagogies and critical literacies in non-violence. Additionally, this article argues tourism must be understood in its wider context and the contribution it may make to both causing and countering structural injustices. We briefly explore emerging thinking on ecocide and decolonisation in order to illuminate the need for a greater engagement in multi-logical, multi-layered and critical thinking in tourism studies. By furthering the peace tourism agenda, this work underscores the need to frame tourism in terms of peace and justice concerns. It also supports recent claims that tourism must be assessed and addressed in its wider structural context. This is a critical and timely discussion as global tourism struggles through multiple crises and challenges.