The contribution of tourism towards a more sustainable and inclusive society: key guiding principles in times of crisis
Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes
ISSN: 1755-4217
Article publication date: 2 December 2020
Issue publication date: 15 December 2020
Abstract
Purpose
At a time when tourism is embarking on the path to recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, this paper aims to put forward a set of principles guiding the development of tourism to enable global society to become more inclusive and sustainable.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adopted a descriptive design using views and data mainly published by 11 international organisations and specialised agencies between March and mid-June 2020. Content analysis was carried out to enable the research to identify features and the presence of challenges for tourism within international organisations’ documents and leaders’ speeches to compare them.
Findings
The results revealed that there are five key principles that may have a significant impact on tourism development, suggesting that these could be adopted for building a more inclusive and sustainable economy, while mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 crisis.
Practical implications
Adopting the five key principles recommended in this paper can help tourism to emerge stronger and in a more sustainable way from COVID-19 or other future crises. Equally, this can incite changes in policies, business practices and consumers’ and locals’ behaviours with a view to building a truly sustainable sector.
Originality/value
This study helps to reconfirm existing knowledge in the COVID-19 context by highlighting five guiding principles that can help tourism players to respond to this crisis disruption and future ones via transformative innovation. In doing so, these will also be contributing to the achievement of the ideals and aims of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Keywords
Citation
Cardoso, C. (2020), "The contribution of tourism towards a more sustainable and inclusive society: key guiding principles in times of crisis", Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, Vol. 12 No. 6, pp. 679-689. https://doi.org/10.1108/WHATT-07-2020-0065
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited