Purpose The purpose of this study is to expand our understanding of sustainable tourism research given that both researchers and policymakers consistently question the effectiveness of sustainable tourism and its practices, applications and practical adoption. Design/methodology/approach The aim of the research was to provide an update on previous studies by examining how sustainable tourism research has progressed in the five intervening years since Ruhanen et al. completed their 25-year bibliometric analysis. Findings This paper provides insights into how sustainable tourism research has developed over the 30 years since the publication of the Brundtland report. It shows that over the past five years, the field has matured to place greater emphasis on climate change, modeling, values, behavior and theoretical progression. Research limitations/implications Future research in the field should aim to better understand the methods and analysis techniques being used in sustainable tourism, as well as how sustainable tourism and climate change policy and actions translate into policy and practice. Originality/value Bibliometrics and text mining shows that 30 years after the Brundtland report, sustainable tourism research continues to grow exponentially, with evidence that the field is starting to mature by broadening its horizons and focusing on more relevant, big-picture and hard-hitting topics, such as climate change.

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Destination familiarity is thought to critically influence tourists’ decision-making processes. Yet the role of familiarity in shaping tourists’ and residents’ image of, and loyalty to, a destination remains uncertain. This research tests a complex and holistic model of familiarity, affective, cognitive and overall images, and the conative behavioural intentions of visiting and recommending the destination for both residents and visitors in the context of the emerging tourism destination of Molise, Italy. The results reveal that residents and visitors differ in terms of their familiarity and intention to visit a place, with familiarity being less likely to influence residents’ intentions. There is heterogeneity between residents and visitors’ affective image and intention to visit, as well as between their overall image and intention to recommend Molise. Hence, unlike visitors, residents are more likely to respond to factual cognitive imaging, rather than emotional messaging, suggesting that shifting residents’ perceptions of place image requires a different approach to that of visitors. Future research should seek to confirm the relationships in a multi-destination study.

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Abstract:This study aims to empirically compare the adoption of business sustainability amongst 291 randomly-selected tourism and non-tourism businesses in New South Wales, Australia. Tourism businesses were found to be more committed to environmentally-sustainable practices than other types of businesses with there being a clear correlation with their ability to learn and adapt. This contradicts criticisms in the literature that tourism businesses are slow adopters of sustainability. This study highlights the need for further research into why tourism businesses in New South Wales, Australia, are reporting higher levels of performance in terms of adopting environmental values than other businesses in contradiction to the general perception of tourism businesses in the literature.

This research advances our understanding of sustainable community development in relation to complex economic phenomena and psychological processes. The last decade has seen regional and global communities transition through unprecedented economic change. Community resilience offers a framework to guide regional development and explore the sustainability of social, economic and environmental systems to manage change. However, the fundamental constructs of community resilience are still not well known, such as the critical role of emotional stability and residents’ perceptions of change. This research explores this relationship in economies undergoing transformations by presenting the results of a survey administered to 663 Mackay and Whitsunday residents in Queensland, Australia. The findings add substantial depth to community resilience theory by demonstrating a positive relationship between emotional stability and resilience and a negative relationship between resilience and perceptions of change. The results also provide insight into the sustainable characteristics of communities to build resilience and manage the transformation process. Future research should focus on further testing the relationship between resilience, emotional stability and perceptions of change within communities at different stages of the transformation process.

Tourism is widely acknowledged as a key contributor to climate change, but it remains unclear how the tourism industry has been planning for climate change in practice. This paper conducts the most comprehensive critical review of Australia's tourism policy and planning documents to date. The paper explores the complex challenges posed by climate change to tourism and how tourism policy has been adapting over a 15-year period. Drawing on a longitudinal dataset of 477 Australian tourism policy and planning documents at the national, state, regional and local level, this research analyses the strategic discourse on climate change using content analysis and bibliometrics. The findings reveal opportunities, challenges and strategies for the tourism industry to contribute to the sustainable management of climate change. Opportunities include developing more "green" products, while strategies include establishing and/or participating in collaborative climate change schemes and strengthening dialogue surrounding climate change to aid the implementation of sustainable practices. Future research should consider the broader policymaking environment, such as the stakeholders, power and interest dynamics when analysing tourism strategies in relation to climate change.