IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i21p8988-d436875.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strategic Decisions for Sustainable Management at Significant Tourist Sites

Author

Listed:
  • Robert M. Mackay

    (Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute, Curtin University, Bentley 6102, Australia)

  • Roberto Minunno

    (Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute, Curtin University, Bentley 6102, Australia)

  • Gregory M. Morrison

    (Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute, Curtin University, Bentley 6102, Australia)

Abstract

This research explores how tourist site management and human attitudes and behaviours can help decrease the pressure of tourism on the environment. Estimates show that, together with ancillary sectors, the tourism industry is expected to contribute approximately 6.5 gigatons of greenhouse gases by 2025. These emissions are primarily a result of tourists favouring air travel and luxury experiences that require more energy outputs. Additionally, tourism continues to grow and has become a routine activity for the middle class who travel more regularly on an annual basis. With growing middle classes in many developing countries, the number of tourists who will be able to afford recreational travel is estimated to increase exponentially. The pressures and demands of increasing tourist numbers can strain vulnerable natural sites. These predictions show that changes within the tourism industry fabric are necessary. Against this backdrop, this research employs a combined methodology. A survey methodology was employed to explore tourist attitudes towards tourism sites and their behaviours and decision making with a top-down and bottom-up approach. Additionally, an interview methodology of tourism field experts was employed to investigate the attitudes of the industry and how consumer behaviours may be influenced. Findings from the survey and interview discussions were employed to inform four managerial aspects. First, the ticket price of the tourist experience should be proportional to the value proposition of the experience. Second, a government-led framework could guide businesses towards sustainable management and educate their tourists on greener practices. Third, businesses could integrate sustainability issues into their marketing and advertising to create awareness and ensure the longevity of the site. Lastly, tourism bodies and businesses could increase their partnerships with local custodians to add cultural value and understand the visitor experience.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert M. Mackay & Roberto Minunno & Gregory M. Morrison, 2020. "Strategic Decisions for Sustainable Management at Significant Tourist Sites," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-22, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:21:p:8988-:d:436875
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/21/8988/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/21/8988/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jukka Laitamaki & Lisandra Torres Hechavarría & Mariko Tada & Siying Liu & Natania Setyady & Nuntawan Vatcharasoontorn & Feizhou Zheng, 2016. "Sustainable Tourism Development Frameworks and Best Practices: Implications for the Cuban Tourism Industry," Managing Global Transitions, University of Primorska, Faculty of Management Koper, vol. 14(1 (Spring), pages 7-29.
    2. Yi Guo & Jinbo Jiang & Shengchao Li, 2019. "A Sustainable Tourism Policy Research Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-16, June.
    3. Piotr Oleśniewicz & Sławomir Pytel & Julita Markiewicz-Patkowska & Adam R. Szromek & Soňa Jandová, 2020. "A Model of the Sustainable Management of the Natural Environment in National Parks—A Case Study of National Parks in Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-28, March.
    4. Ruhanen, Lisa & Whitford, Michelle & McLennan, Char-lee, 2015. "Indigenous tourism in Australia: Time for a reality check," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 73-83.
    5. M.F Diallo & F Diop-Sall & E Leroux & Pierre Valette-Florence, 2015. "Comportement responsable des touristes : le rôle de l'engagement social," Post-Print halshs-01373980, HAL.
    6. Puvaneswaran Kunasekaran & Sarjit S Gill & Sridar Ramachandran & Ahmad Shuib & Tom Baum & Syamsul Herman Mohammad Afandi, 2017. "Measuring Sustainable Indigenous Tourism Indicators: A Case of Mah Meri Ethnic Group in Carey Island, Malaysia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-20, July.
    7. Dodds, Rachel & Butler, Richard, 2009. "Barriers to implementing Sustainable Tourism Policy in Mass Tourism Destinations," MPRA Paper 25162, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 07 Nov 2009.
    8. Genovaite Liobikiene & Tomas Balezentis & Dalia Streimikiene & Xueli Chen, 2019. "Evaluation of bioeconomy in the context of strong sustainability," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(5), pages 955-964, September.
    9. Paul Lansing & Paul Vries, 2007. "Sustainable Tourism: Ethical Alternative or Marketing Ploy?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 72(1), pages 77-85, April.
    10. Francisco Antonio dos Anjos & James Kennell, 2019. "Tourism, Governance and Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-6, August.
    11. Joshua D. Kertzer & Thomas Zeitzoff, 2017. "A Bottom‐Up Theory of Public Opinion about Foreign Policy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 61(3), pages 543-558, July.
    12. Dann, Stephen, 2010. "Redefining social marketing with contemporary commercial marketing definitions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 147-153, February.
    13. Juvan, Emil & Dolnicar, Sara, 2014. "The attitude–behaviour gap in sustainable tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 76-95.
    14. Jean Hartley, 2005. "Innovation in Governance and Public Services: Past and Present," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(1), pages 27-34, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ester Guijarro & Cristina Santadreu-Mascarell & Beatriz Blasco-Gallego & Lourdes Canós-Darós & Eugenia Babiloni, 2021. "On the Identification of the Key Factors for a Successful Use of Twitter as a Medium from a Social Marketing Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-15, June.
    2. Skye Akbar & Rob Hallak, 2019. "Identifying Business Practices Promoting Sustainability in Aboriginal Tourism Enterprises in Remote Australia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-18, August.
    3. Ivan Paunović & Marc Dressler & Tatjana Mamula Nikolić & Sanja Popović Pantić, 2020. "Developing a Competitive and Sustainable Destination of the Future: Clusters and Predictors of Successful National-Level Destination Governance across Destination Life-Cycle," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-15, May.
    4. Yuetao Yang & Gowhar Ahmad Wani & V. Nagaraj & Mohammad Haseeb & Sameer Sultan & Md. Emran Hossain & Mustafa Kamal & Syed Mehmood Raza Shah, 2023. "Progress in Sustainable Tourism Research: An Analysis of the Comprehensive Literature and Future Research Directions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-15, February.
    5. Rinor F. Kurteshi, 2018. "Information Sources Supporting Innovation In The Public Sector: The Case Of Kosovo," Oradea Journal of Business and Economics, University of Oradea, Faculty of Economics, vol. 3(2), pages 22-31, September.
    6. Petteri Repo & Kaisa Matschoss, 2019. "Social Innovation for Sustainability Challenges," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    7. Elena Madeo, 2021. "The Role of Crowdfunding for New Funding Challenges in Public Universities: An Italian Case Study," Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, , vol. 15(2), pages 186-205, September.
    8. Panasiuk Aleksander, 2020. "Policy of Sustainable Development of Urban Tourism," Polish Journal of Sport and Tourism, Sciendo, vol. 27(2), pages 33-37, June.
    9. Yao Zhu & Shousheng Chai & Jieqi Chen & Ian Phau, 2024. "How was rural tourism developed in China? Examining the impact of China’s evolving rural tourism policies," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 26(11), pages 28945-28969, November.
    10. Carmelina Bevilacqua & Yapeng Ou & Pasquale Pizzimenti & Guglielmo Minervino, 2019. "New Public Institutional Forms and Social Innovation in Urban Governance: Insights from the “Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics” (MONUM) in Boston," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-24, December.
    11. Gomez, Rebecca J. & Travis, Dnika J. & Ayers-Lopez, Susan & Schwab, A. James, 2010. "In search of innovation: A national qualitative analysis of child welfare recruitment and retention efforts," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 664-671, May.
    12. Havas, Attila & Weber, K. Matthias, 2017. "The 'fit' between forward-looking activities and the innovation policy governance sub-system: A framework to explore potential impacts," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 327-337.
    13. Alessia Acampora & Michele Preziosi & Maria Claudia Lucchetti & Roberto Merli, 2022. "The Role of Hotel Environmental Communication and Guests’ Environmental Concern in Determining Guests’ Behavioral Intentions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-23, September.
    14. Tóth, Balázs, 2021. "Milyen kapcsolatban állnak a közszféra reformjai a gazdaságpolitikai paradigmákkal? [How reforms of the public sector relate to the paradigms of economic policy]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(2), pages 205-222.
    15. Benoit Desmarchelier & Faridah Djellal & Faïz Gallouj, 2018. "L'innovation dans les services publics à la lumière des paradigmes de l'administration publique et des perspectives des Service Innovation Studies," Working Papers halshs-01934287, HAL.
    16. Colvin, John & Blackmore, Chris & Chimbuya, Sam & Collins, Kevin & Dent, Mark & Goss, John & Ison, Ray & Roggero, Pier Paolo & Seddaiu, Giovanna, 2014. "In search of systemic innovation for sustainable development: A design praxis emerging from a decade of social learning inquiry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 760-771.
    17. Zajda, Catherine & Pasikowski, Slawomir, 2018. "The scale of intersectoral cooperation for the implementation of social policy in rural areas. Proposed research tool," Village and Agriculture (Wieś i Rolnictwo), Polish Academy of Sciences (IRWiR PAN), Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development, vol. 181(4), December.
    18. Arundel, Anthony & Casali, Luca & Hollanders, Hugo, 2015. "How European public sector agencies innovate: The use of bottom-up, policy-dependent and knowledge-scanning innovation methods," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1271-1282.
    19. Shiwei Shen & Marios Sotiriadis & Qing Zhou, 2020. "Could Smart Tourists Be Sustainable and Responsible as Well? The Contribution of Social Networking Sites to Improving Their Sustainable and Responsible Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-21, February.
    20. Thomas Bausch & Tilman Schröder & Verena Tauber & Bernard Lane, 2021. "Sustainable Tourism: The Elephant in the Room," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-19, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:21:p:8988-:d:436875. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.