More or Less Sustainable? Assessment from a Policy Perspective

Abstract

Sustainability of tourism destinations has become the main focus in planning and managing tourism development. Despite existing legislation and an institutional framework to safeguard balanced tourism growth, many destinations fail to properly address it. So far, studies are limited in exploring sustainable tourism impacts from a policy perspective. This study follows previous ones in using the triple bottom line sustainability approach to define tourism impacts. It argues, in particular, for a nexus between understanding of policy perception and sustainability, and it applies this to tourist destinations in Serbia to determine whether they are operating sustainably. For this purpose, the data were collected using a combination of multiple methods, involving interviews with policymakers and content analysis of strategic documents. This study further suggests a model that assesses the extent of the sustainability of tourist destinations. The results illustrate the importance of understanding policy perceptions in shaping and facilitating sustainability and informing policy enablers on how to improve and reform current tourism development. The model can be adopted and applied to any tourist destination facing an inevitable need to re-shape their tourism development plans and policies, while the implications address the need to build a participative policy approach to sustainable tourism development.

Modelling the Extent of Sustainability of Tourism Destinations in Serbia

“…The next section presents the applied methodology, followed by discussion and conclusion. The study contributes to the literature review on tourism sustainability in Serbia as already previously discussed [30].…”

“…The National Tourism Organization is responsible for tourism promotion at the national level and three regional tourism organizations (Vojvodina, West Serbia and Sandžak) at regional level. Furthermore, there are over 130 local tourism organizations at municipal level, over 300 tourist agencies, about 200 hotels and restaurants, and almost 200 licensed tour guides [30]. The overall sustainability framework is defined within the National Strategy on Sustainable Development [28] and the Strategy of Tourism Development 2016-2025 [29].…”

“…Furthermore, various concepts are argued, and numerous theories are utilized, from the mostly employed Social exchange theory [1], Tourist area life cycle [7], and Irridex model [12], to the new ones, like: Stakeholders theory, which has been extensively debated [9,10,16,25,46], Dependency theory [20], Place attachment theory [17], Resistance theory [11], and many more [27]. Additionally, many studies include policy enablers' perception [13,30,32,34]. On the other hand, there are negative examples where investments have not sustained and gained sustainability [39,40].…”

Selected Elements of Technical Infrastructure in Municipalities Territorially Connected with National Parks

“…At the same time, it should be emphasized that the concept of sustainable tourism is still open and widely discussed. Even though there is a consensus regarding the principle that an ongoing and sustainable development of tourism is such a method for doing business and organizing social life, which ensures both the development and preservation of the environmental values along with improving the quality of people's lives, there are still many detailed interpretations of the discussed concept [39,40].…”

Is Being Responsible Sustainable in Tourism? Connections and Critical Differences

“…Based on this, sustainable tourism was defined as an activity that aims to meet "the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunities for the future" [44] (p. 7). Since then, the UNWTO and other international policy organizations further elaborated upon the definition [45]. For example, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the UNWTO have jointly re-defined sustainable tourism as "tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities" [46] (p. 12).…”