Sustainable Tourism Experience Research Articles

The Influence of Sustainable Tourism Certification, Local Community Awareness, and Product Innovation on the Reputation of Destinations in Yogyakarta

This study examines the influence of sustainable tourism certification, local community awareness, and product innovation on the destination reputation of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Using a quantitative approach, data were collected from 270 respondents representing tourists, local residents, and tourism service providers, and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling-Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS 3). The results reveal that all three factors significantly and positively impact Yogyakarta’s destination reputation. Sustainable tourism certification enhances the image of the destination, while local community awareness fosters support for sustainable practices. Additionally, product innovation contributes to the competitiveness and attractiveness of Yogyakarta by offering unique and sustainable tourism experiences. These findings highlight the importance of integrating sustainability, community engagement, and innovation to build and maintain a strong destination reputation. Practical implications for tourism stakeholders and policymakers in Yogyakarta are discussed.

The future of green tourism in Bali: Challenges and opportunities

This research examines the future of green tourism in Bali, analyzing the challenges and opportunities facing the island in its sustainable tourism development efforts. The research adopts a multi-method qualitative approach, including a systematic literature review using the PRISMA method, in-depth semi-structured interviews, and participatory observation. Data were collected from key stakeholders in Bali's tourism industry, including experienced tourism operators, government officials, environmental experts, and community leaders representatives. Respondents were selected using purposive sampling, with the criteria of having a minimum of five years of experience in Bali's tourism industry or related fields. Their role was to provide insights into the current state of green tourism in Bali, challenges faced, and potential development opportunities. Key findings revealed significant challenges such as environmental damage from mass tourism, inadequate waste management, threats to biodiversity, cultural exploitation, and economic inequality. Nonetheless, Bali also shows great potential for green tourism development, including supportive government policies, community engagement opportunities, technological advances, and the growing global demand for sustainable tourism experiences. This research proposes a comprehensive strategy to boost green tourism in Bali, emphasizing stakeholder collaboration, sustainable tourism standards, eco-friendly infrastructure improvements, and awareness-raising campaigns.

Efficacy assessments of public artworks intervening in rural built environments for tourism developments: a comparative study of two tourism villages in Hangzhou

ABSTRACT Interventions through rural tourism programs and rural art projects have played a significant role in rural revitalization initiatives in China, wherein public artworks have been deliberately integrated into rural built environments. This study combined both objective and subjective measurements, in two representative tourism villages in Hangzhou that underwent revitalizations. These artworks were strategically placed in the public domains of the villages in two distinct phases, enabling the calculation of their Visual Exposure Rates (VERs). Objective evaluations were gathered on-site via the Comprehensive Assessment of Artworks and Surroundings (CAAS) survey, and the data were subjected to quantitative analysis using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. The study reveals differential changes in VERs across the two villages, concurrently observing variations in the CAAS scores. Findings indicate the efficient promotion of fusion design to support sustainable rural tourism in three dimensions: spatial layout characteristics, cultural and aesthetic values, and tourism management practices. It suggested that sustainable rural tourism development should not hinge solely on increasing the quantity of public artworks but rather on the holistic improvement of sustainable spatial design and management to enhance the rural value chain, ensuring a more comprehensive and sustainable tourism experience

Integrating reinforcement learning and metaheuristics for safe and sustainable health tourist trip design problem

This study aims to address the critical challenge of enhancing safety within the domain of health and wellness tourism through the framework of sustainable travel design. Given the rising demand for secure and sustainable tourism experiences, this investigation explores the integration of safety considerations into the strategic planning and execution of tourist journeys. The central focus of this research revolves around the development and application of the Modified Reinforcement Learning-Artificial Multiple Intelligence System (MRL-AMIS). Operating within a multi-objective framework, the objective of this study is to optimize essential parameters encompassing environmental sustainability, economic viability, tourist preferences, and societal acceptability, with a specific emphasis on safety. The efficacy of the proposed methodology is rigorously evaluated across various tourist group scenarios, providing a comprehensive assessment of its applicability. Our computational analyses unequivocally demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach in enhancing safety, surpassing existing methods such as genetic algorithms, differential evolution algorithms, particle swarm optimization, etc., by 15%-25%. These findings underscore the effectiveness of the proposed method in seamlessly integrating safety considerations into the realm of sustainable tourism planning. This study highlights the potential of the proposed method as an advanced tool in the strategic planning of sustainable tourism, particularly within the context of health and wellness tourism. It constitutes a significant contribution to the field of sustainable tourism by offering an innovative approach that prioritizes safety while upholding the principles of environmental stewardship, economic viability, and societal sustainability.

ISLAMIC FASHION TREND PHENOMENON IN SEMARANG OLD CITY AREA

Tourism in Semarang's Old Town is a phenomenon that has a significant impact on tourists' dress preferences. This article presents an observational analysis of how age, economy, and culture influence tourists' dress choices in the context of Semarang's Old Town. The research method used is an ethnographic approach involving in-depth observations, interviews, and active participation in the traveller community. The results revealed age variations among tourists, with young people and older generations visiting. The implications of age are reflected in dress preferences, with the younger generation being more experimental in Islamic fashion styles, while the older generation is more conservative. Economic characteristics also play an important role, with high-income travellers opting for luxury clothing while low-income ones opt for more modest clothing. The influence of Islamic values creates diversity in clothing choices, with visitors who identify themselves as Muslims more likely to choose clothing in accordance with Islamic teachings. A sense of respect for a particular culture also influences clothing choices. In conclusion, tourists' dress preferences in Semarang's Old Town are reflected through a complex interaction between age, economy, Islamic values, and culture. Knowledge of these factors is important in the development of inclusive and sustainable tourism experiences.

The Impact of Tourist Operant Resources on Online Citizenship Behavior in Sustainable Tourism

Sustainability has emerged as a critical concern in the tourism industry. In sustainable tourism, the question of how to engage tourists in value co-creation has started to receive attention. Based on service-dominant logic, this paper develops an integrated model to reveal the impact of tourist operant resources on online citizenship behavior from the perspective of interactions between tourists and online travel agencies (OTAs). Empirical research is conducted using data collected from 301 tourists with customized sustainable tourism experiences. The results show that tourist operant resources are positively associated with online citizenship behavior, with the perceived value (functional value and emotional value) playing a partially mediating role in this relationship. Knowledge distance between tourists and OTA service personnel exerts an inverted U-shaped moderating effect on the relationship between tourist operant resources and functional values, but it does not have a moderating effect on the relationship between tourist operant resources and emotional values. Resource integration capability positively moderates the impact of tourist operant resources on functional and emotional values. This study reveals the contingency role of tourist operant resources in the entire value co-creation process in the context of sustainable tourism and provides practical guidance for OTAs to promote tourists’ online citizenship behavior to develop sustainable tourism.

Komunikasi dalam Pengembangan Pasraman Sebagai Destinasi Pariwisata

Pasraman, as a Hindu educational institution, has great potential to become a unique and attractive tourism destination, especially those based on religion and culture. However, the development of pasraman as a tourism destination requires the important role of effective communication. This article aims to explore the role of communication in the development of Pasraman as a tourism destination. Through a literature review and case studies, this research discusses the dynamics of communication involved in the process of developing pasraman as a tourism destination and the implications for tourism management and marketing. The research findings show that internal communication between acarya and brahmacari pasraman, as well as external communication between tourists and local communities, have an important role in building an authentic and sustainable tourism experience. In addition, the use of digital communication and social media also provides great opportunities in promoting and expanding the reach of pasraman as a tourism destination. The implications of this research underscore the importance of effective communication management in supporting the development of pasraman as a sustainable tourism destination and contributing to the preservation of Hindu culture. This article is expected to provide insight and practical guidance for managers and stakeholders in utilizing communication as the main tool in strengthening the role of Pasraman as an attractive and competitive tourism destination.

The Challenge of Generating Sustainable Value: Narratives About Sustainability in the Italian Tourism Sector

Tourism is capable of distributing wealth and participating substantially in the economic development of many countries. However, to ensure these benefits, the planning, management, and monitoring of a sustainable offer become crucial. Despite the increasingly widespread attention to sustainability in this sector, however, the concept of sustainable tourism still appears fragmented and fuzzy. The theoretical frameworks used in many studies often reduce sustainability to its environmental or social aspects and consider such pillars as separate issues. Furthermore, although most studies acknowledge that a potentially wide number of stakeholders play a role in sustainable tourism production, they have so far focused on host communities, tourism producers, or tourists themselves independently. Fewer explorations have addressed simultaneously different stakeholders, their perceptions of sustainable tourism experience, and the various concerns and tensions that may arise. This study aims to investigate sustainability issues in tourism by considering the voices of two relevant stakeholders involved in “co-producing” the tourism experience: tourists and tour operators. Based on a qualitative study conducted in Italy, the article critically discusses how travelers and tour operators craft the sustainability idea, the implicit assumptions that rely on their different perspectives, and their practical implications. The results highlight four different narratives on sustainable tourism, which are related to different assumptions on sustainability and actions legitimated to generate sustainable value. Finally, the article offers insights into how to develop a more holistic and critical approach to sustainable tourism through education and communication.

Rural community tourism and sustainable advantages in Nicaragua

PurposeRural community tourism (RCT) represents an experience of community-based tourism where local population retains control over the process and the bulk of benefits. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the study of successful RCT experiences in Nicaragua to enlarge the literature of tourism sustainability.Design/methodology/approachApplying the resource-based theory of the firm to tourism, the paper defines a theoretical framework where local resources and capabilities combined through organization and strategic actions result in competitive advantages at the community level reinforcing its sustainable dimension. The model is tested empirically through Structural Equation Modelling-Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) modelling for Nicaraguan RCT experiences.FindingsMain findings show a good performance of empirical results, with the community dimension representing the cornerstone of the RCT project. Results remark how the presence of community tangible and intangible resources and capabilities are combined and exploited in tourism initiatives through strategies that put the preservation of the community as the central objective. This process leads to the emergence of competitive advantages that promote the sustainability of the community lifestyle, ensuring a durable approach of the rural tourism initiatives. Other interesting findings show how this type of RCT projects also promote the integration of weak rural collectives, like women and young people, or the pivotal cooperation emerging between public and private actors.Originality/valueThe paper provides a novel framework to better understand some of the key pieces ensuring the sustainability of tourism initiatives. This theoretical setting has been applied to the case of rural areas at developing countries but could be enlarged to other contexts at developed countries having to deal with mass tourism and important related negative impacts of these activities. In sum, the main value of the paper is to provide a framework helping to identify the context that is needed to implement successful sustainable tourism experiences.

Authenticity, Quality, and Loyalty: Local Food and Sustainable Tourism Experience

The sustainability of rural development, both economic and environmental, has been increasingly linking to local food, which plays an indispensable role by preserving traditional culture, attracting tourists, and supporting the regional economy. However, the authenticity and quality of local food have not been fully convinced as competitive advantages by most practitioners. Little is known about how authenticity affects quality attributes, tourist satisfaction, and tourist loyalty. Thus, this study examines the role of authenticity in the quality–satisfaction–loyalty framework. The field research was performed in Shunde County, Guangdong Province, China. The results challenge the traditional view of quality attributes by highlighting that authenticity is a key antecedent to the quality–satisfaction–loyalty framework of food tourism. In contrast, the relationships among quality attributes, tourist satisfaction, and tourist loyalty are contingent on the extent to which food tourists perceive the authenticity of rural local food.

Open Innovation and Social Big Data for Sustainability: Evidence from the Tourism Industry

This paper aims to contribute to the debate on Open Innovation in the age of Big Data by shedding new light on the role that social networks can play as enabling platforms for tourists’ involvement and sources for the creation and management of valuable knowledge assets. The huge amount of data generated on social media by tourists related to their travel experiences can be a valid source of open innovation. To achieve this aim, this paper presents evidence of a digital tourism experience, through a longitudinal case study of a destination in Apulia, a Southern European region. The findings of the study demonstrate how social Big Data could open up innovation processes that could be of support in defining sustainable tourism experiences in a destination.

Sustainable Tourism Experiences in Ecuador; Implementing knowledge’ Social Construction process in a rural community

This work aims to socialize a successful experience for Social Knowledge Construction in the field of Environmental Literacy. This work takes place at the rural Afro-Ecuadorian community “San Miguel”, located in Ecuador, South America. The participants are 35 women and men, who installed a communitarian tourism project with the support of national and international rural development programs in 2005. However, any study had been executed in the location to determine the impacts on the natural and cultural heritage, since the touristic project began; in consequence, the community has not information to take decisions about their entrepreneurship. This work applied the ethnographic social research method and the techniques of semi-structured interview and community surveys to collect data. It was applied the Model of Echavarren for Assessing the Tourism Impacts on Natural and Cultural Resources. The results show that the economical contribution from the touristic project is still low but, necessary in the community. There are no relevant impacts on the natural and cultural heritage. However, an Environmental Literacy Plan based on Mendonca and the Social Knowledge Construction approach is introduced by the authors to strengthen local people environmental behavior. This plan can be adapted and applied in other communities. It is concluded that environmental literacy plans can be more efficient when are applied as transversal topics during formal and informal communitarian activities. This community members respect their agreement for keeping their natural and cultural resources for the enjoying of the future generations; even when, this represents a limited economic retribution.

Long-Term Sustainable Development of Tourism in South Tyrol: An Analysis of Tourists’ Perception

Although sustainable tourism concepts are gaining in importance everywhere, related research is quite fragmented with many studies concentrating on environmental sustainability. Seeking to contribute to the general discussion, we first examine the perceptions of sustainability among tourists using a best–worst scaling method applied to important aspects of sustainable tourism. Our results show that experiencing nature in an intense and profound way is considered the most important aspect of sustainable tourism whereas grappling with the culture of the host region is perceived as the least important aspect of sustainable tourism in our sample. Second, we analyze if socio-demographic and/or other factors have significant implications for the propensity to increase expenditures for sustainable holiday offers. Applying a simple regression model, we can show that age has a significant and positive impact on the propensity to spend more on a sustainable holiday offer such as overnight stays in an accommodation that is carbon-neutral. Other socio-demographic variables such as gender, education, and income are not significant. Moreover, hotel stars and average expenditures per person per night are significant and have a positive effect on the propensity to spend more on carbon-neutral housing. Two simple policy implications can be drawn: (1) sustainable tourism experiences should prioritize landscape and natural beauty; and (2) sustainable tourism offers are best suited for higher-priced and/or higher starred hotels.

Tea tourism as a marketing tool: a strategy to develop the image of Sri Lanka as an attractive tourism destination

Tourism is one of the world’s largest industries as well a provider of employments over to 100 million populations around the world. Niche tourism refers to strategy that specific tourism product personalized to meet the needs of a particular tourist segment. Hence Tea tourism has been identified as one niche Tourism segment emerged with novel concept of sustainable and nature based eco-friendly tourism. Research objective is to identify the potentials to promote Sri Lanka as a tea tourism destination with special reference to Badulla and Nuwara Eliya districts by investigating the tea tourists’ attitudes, expectations and destination attributes and local community involvement for tea tourism. Sample consists with 173 tea tourists and structured questionnaire and semi structured interviews were adopted in primary data collection. The numerous potentials have been identified which will be in capable of promoting tea tourism. Destination image building with the brand name of “Ceylon Tea”, global promotional campaigns with the collaboration of Social Media Marketing tools as well introducing sustainable tourism experience packages has been recommended.

An Empirical Examination of the Form of Relationship Between Sustainable Tourism Experiences and Satisfaction

This paper problematizes the terms “sustainable tourism and satisfaction”. It conceptualizes sustainable tourism as a future trend in tourism and argues that although sustainable tourism and satisfaction frequently function as a means of tourist evaluation and experience for attractions, their social significance extends far beyond current tourism planning. This paper uses empirical material from 642 tourists who had sustainable tourism experiences and gathers samples from several natural resource conservation zones in Taiwan. If tourists feel a sense of novelty about a tourist destination, they may increase their sustainable experience and further enhance their willingness and satisfaction toward sustainable tourism. In addition, sustainable tourism studies suggest that novelty enhances emotional excitement, which in turn leads to more overall valuable evaluations and higher satisfaction. This paper tests both direct and indirect mechanisms simultaneously using structural equation modeling methods. The results support the predictions.

‘It's not about believing’: Exploring the transformative potential of cultural acknowledgement in an Indigenous tourism context

AbstractThis paper directly challenges the persisting argument that in the host–(uninvited) guest relationship of Kimberley coastal tourism in Australia's far northwest, Traditional Owners (the hosts) have a pedagogic responsibility to first educate the tourism industry (the guests) of their impacts on them in order to facilitate culturally appropriate and sustainable tourism experiences. We contend that such an argument reflects a deeply entrenched context of erasure and power imbalance between Australian Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal people. We highlight, using three decades of public records, the fact that government and industry have ignored and continue to ignore knowledge and learning shared by Kimberley Aboriginal peoples in attempts to rectify serious issues of cultural impacts and risks to visitors arising from unsanctioned tourism activities on Traditional Owners’ land and sea country. We argue for the possibility of tourism operating in a mutually satisfactory hybrid space in which acknowledgement, tolerance and respect discharges the need for understanding different ontologies that operate within that space but provides the potential for learning. Using Bourdieu's notion of transformative practice, we propose that the development of such a hybrid space could transform the problem of unsanctioned tourism access to the Kimberley coast into an iteration that could facilitate its taming and thus a shift towards sustainable practices based on mutual recognition and respect.

Backpacker tourism: sustainable and purposeful? Investigating the overlap between backpacker tourism and volunteer tourism motivations

Alternative tourism, particularly backpacker and volunteer tourism, has developed significantly in recent times. This rapid development has contributed to criticism of potential negative effects, notably of the environmental, cultural, economic and social impacts associated with backpacker tourism. Volunteer tourism, by contrast, has been seen in positive terms as more sustainable, combining altruistic motivations with the travel concept. This paper explores backpacker interest in volunteer tourism and identifies overlaps in motivations between the two forms of tourism; 249 self-administered questionnaires were collected from backpackers within backpacker hostels in central Melbourne, Australia. The findings of this study suggest that a motivational overlap exists between backpacker and volunteer tourists, indicating potential for the creation of volunteer tourism products catering specifically for the backpacker market. This may encourage more sustainable tourism experiences within the burgeoning backpacker market, thus addressing some of the negative criticism of the latter. This paper also discusses the implications of these findings for the marketing and development of volunteer tourism products for both the backpacker and volunteer tourism markets.

Food, place and authenticity: local food and the sustainable tourism experience

In recent years, attempts to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of both tourism and agriculture have been linked to the development of “alternative” food networks and a renewed enthusiasm for food products that are perceived to be traditional and local. This paper draws on research from two UK regions, the Lake District and Exmoor, to argue that local food can play an important role in the sustainable tourism experience because it appeals to the visitor's desire for authenticity within the holiday experience. Using evidence from qualitative interviews with tourists and food producers, the paper records ways in which local foods are conceptualised as “authentic” products that symbolise the place and culture of the destination. By engaging with debates surrounding the meaning of locality and authenticity, the paper challenges existing understandings of these concepts and offers a new way forward for tourism research by arguing that “local food” has the potential to enhance the visitor experience by connecting consumers to the region and its perceived culture and heritage.