Sustainable High Yield Luxury Tourism Experiences

Abstract

Luxury tourism is an emerging area of research and deserves consideration for its implications for tourism and hospitality management and policy development. This chapter reviews the phenomena of luxury tourism in the academic literature and in particular, its links to the concepts of high yield, sustainability and tourist experiences. The global hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has presented an opportunity for tourism policymakers and industry stakeholders to reconsider how luxury tourism can contribute to optimal economic, social and environmental outcomes with desired yield and sustainability aspirations. A renewed understanding of luxury tourism in terms of its production and consumption processes, as well as the associated value, emotion and narrative, is therefore of critical importance. The value of this chapter lies in synthesising a number of strands of inquiry across disparate bodies of literature to identify a research agenda. Areas that are proposed for further research include the conceptualisation of luxury tourism, the evolving nature of luxury experiences; value co-creation across all stages of luxury tourism; and the nexus between luxury tourism and destination image. Managerial implications of luxury tourism are also discussed, including the necessary conditions for cultivating luxury tourism; the need to measure the social and environmental impact of luxury tourism; and the important relationships between luxury tourism, innovation and market leadership.