Sustainability issues on islands: a case of Cephalonia (Greece)

Abstract

Sustainability influences and is influenced by tourism resources on islands which require suppliers to be proactive in their contribution to sustainable production. However, these tourism suppliers are challenged by a myriad of sustainability issues that paralyze progress toward sustainable development of island tourism. This study employs the core and peripheral sustainable tourism indicator framework proposed by Agyeiwaah et al. (2017) to illustrate the sustainability issues tourism suppliers contend with. Based on qualitative semi-structured interviews (SSIs) with 15 tourism and hospitality suppliers in both the private and public sector on the Greek island of Cephalonia, the results point to the perceived powerlessness and lack of control over the core and peripheral sustainability issues such as poor accessibility, unfair competition, foreign investment dependence, and bureaucracy that need to be addressed for sustainable production. Findings point towards a pessimistic and fatalist view of sustainability issues from a supply perspective in Cephalonia. Implications of these findings for island destinations are discussed.