Although previous research shows great interest in improving the sustainability of organizations’ performance, little is known about individual sustainable performance, especially for special groups such as tour guides. Drawing on the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this study aimed to investigate the effect of environmental dynamism caused by COVID-19 on tour guides’ sustainable performance and mediating role of vitality and intervention mechanism in this relationship. Adopting a quantitative research method, we collected data from 382 professional tour guides in China via three surveys. The Structural Equation Model (SEM) and PROCESS were used to test the hypotheses. The results revealed that: (1) environmental dynamism was negatively related to tour guides’ sustainable performance and (2) vitality at work mediated this negative effect; (3) a positive stress mindset moderated the relationship between environmental dynamism and vitality; (4) supportive policy’s moderating role in the relationship of vitality and sustainable performance was not significant. The above conclusions contribute to the literature about the external environment, emotional state, performance management and application boundary of COR theory in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The flows of people and material attributed to international tourism exert a major impact on the global environment. Tourism carbon emissions is the main indicator in this context. However, previous studies focused on estimating the emissions of destinations, ignoring the embodied emissions in tourists’ origins and other areas. This study provides a comprehensive framework of a tourism telecoupling system. Taking China’s international tourism as an example, we estimate the carbon emissions of its tourism telecoupling system based on the Tourism Satellite Account and input–output model. We find that (1) the proposal of a tourism telecoupling system provides a new perspective for analyzing the carbon emissions of a tourism system. The sending system (origins) and indirect spillover system (resource suppliers) have been ignored in previous studies. (2) In the telecoupling system of China’s international tourism, the emission reduction effect of the sending system is significant. (3) The direct spillover system (transit) and indirect spillover system’s spatial transfer effects of environment responsibility are remarkable. (4) There is a large carbon trade implied in international tourism. This study makes us pay attention to the carbon emissions of tourists’ origins and the implied carbon trading in tourism flows.