Larry Dwyer

Despite decades of economic expansion, global growth has not translated into broad improvements in living standards (Asadnabizadeh, 2023). Industrial development continues to deplete natural resour...

This paper examines the potential of smart tourism to contribute to sustainable destination development, identifying the key theoretical and practical challenges that hinder this transition. It first clarifies the concept of smart tourism and reviews its economic, social, and environmental implications for stakeholders. Although positive impacts are frequently cited as evidence of smart tourism’s sustainability benefits, the sustainability construct itself remains insufficiently defined and often used uncritically. Three major challenges are highlighted. The first is recognising that human wellbeing is the fundamental objective of tourism development, including smart tourism. The second is the need for a coherent and consistent conception of sustainability that prioritises stakeholder wellbeing outcomes and integrates appropriate indicators for evaluating progress. The third challenge is to develop strategies that support a more people-centred approach to smart tourism research and policy, embedding wellbeing considerations across the policy cycle. Together, these challenges underscore the importance of reframing smart tourism within a wellbeing-oriented sustainability agenda.

Doughnut Economics reimagines economic thinking, shifting away from the traditional focus on GDP growth, and instead emphasizes creation of an economy that meets human needs while staying within planetary boundaries. This paper explores the implications of the doughnut framework for tourism economics. It is argued that the model provides a robust foundation for rethinking tourism’s relationship with natural resources and ecological processes. The paper analyzes the pathways that can guide progress toward the goals of social and planetary wellbeing, emphasising the potential of Doughnut Economics to inform sustainable development pathways for tourism.

Purpose – The study provides a critical review of the Statistical Framework for Measuring Sustainable Tourism (SF-MST), an initiative of UN Tourism which is guiding strategies of destination development worldwide. The failure of the framework to treat stakeholder wellbeing seriously has several adverse consequences for tourism theory, practice and policy. Methodology/Design/Approach – The study employs desk research to compare treatment of stakeholder wellbeing in the SF-MST with evolving social science research. The list of indicators in the SF-MST includes narrow, simplistic ‘satisfaction’ or ‘perception’ measures for host communities and visitors, rather than the robust wellbeing metrics currently being developed by researchers and government agencies worldwide. Findings – The SF-MST represents a missed opportunity to align tourism research with the global movement to embed wellbeing measures into public policy frameworks. Placing wellbeing at the centre of tourism policy enables destination managers and industry stakeholders to contribute more meaningfully to broader economic and social development goals. Originality of the research – The research is original in calling attention to limitations of the SF-MST in its attempt to drive the sustainable development of tourism destinations worldwide. The challenge now for destinations is to adopt, adapt, or develop suitable wellbeing measures to guide future development paths.

Across the social sciences, wellbeing measures are being developed to cover a more comprehensive picture of factors contributing to quality of life. However, ongoing neglect of the wellbeing outcomes of tourism activity has restricted the relevance of much tourism research, practice and policymaking globally. These include failure to recognise human wellbeing as the primary aim of any industrial development, including tourism; adherence to a superficial conception of the nature of wellbeing and its measures; a failure to acknowledge that human wellbeing, beyond “needs”, is an essential component of sustainable development; tourism stakeholder adherence to a primarily static, rather than dynamic conception of sustainability; failure to distinguish between “weak” and “strong” sustainability; uncritical adoption of a pro-growth mindset that is steadily depleting and degrading the resources and the wellbeing of life on the planet; failure to incorporate wellbeing outcomes into tourism business mission statements; and failure to treat seriously the need for tourism degrowth at least for some sectors of the industry. To address such failures, tourism decisionmakers must incorporate stakeholder wellbeing outcomes into conceptual analysis, empirical research and policy assessment.

As measures of wellbeing have matured, wellbeing-related outcomes have become increasingly relevant as inputs to policy-making, with increasing numbers of countries using wellbeing metrics to guide decision-making and inform government budgetary processes that support sustainable development. The concept of the wellbeing economy (WBE) is gaining traction as a serious alternative to ‘business as usual’ in industrial development and may be expected to have increasing relevance in tourism planning, policy development, and assessment. The paper addresses the nature of the WBE, what it is, and what it is expected to achieve for both public- and private-sector stakeholders. The implications for tourism policy, destination development and tourism operations are discussed. Several types of barriers to participation by the tourism industry in the WBE agenda are identified. The final section outlines a future agenda for tourism research and sustainable development based on a wellbeing-informed approach.

As the study of well-being has matured as a statistical and measurement agenda, it has gained relevance as a guide to public policy, generating more comprehensive metrics of human progress and embedding them in public policy initiatives and assessments. Internationally, a growing number of governments are attempting to ‘measure what matters’ through the use of well-being frameworks for policy decision-making at different stages of the policy cycle. The overarching vision is to enhance sustainable well-being, reflecting fulfilled lives of persons living now and in the future. Embedded within a conception of the ‘Well-being Economy’, this effort is argued to have substantial implications for tourism destination planning, management, policy assessment, and research. Following an overview of international progress in ‘measuring what matters’, important sources and indicators of well-being are identified, and their relevance to sustainable tourism development is emphasised. The paper thence highlights the potential advantages of using a well-being framework to guide the tourism policy cycle, addressing challenges that arise. The paper concludes with a proposed well-being action and research agenda for destination managers and other tourism stakeholders.

In March 2024, UN Tourism (formerly UNWTO) released for publication the Statistical Framework for Measuring Sustainable Tourism (SF-MST). The SF-MST is claimed to give a full account of tourism’s current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities. An important motivation for the development of the SF-MST is recognition that standard economic measures such as GDP do not capture important dimensions of people’s well-being. While the SF-MST contributes to the development of an international statistical framework for tourism, this paper argues that failure to adequately incorporate well-being outcomes within its recommended range of ‘sustainability’ indicators greatly restricts the scope and policy significance of the SF-MST. The paper concludes with suggestions for further extensions of the SF-MST framework to strengthen its policy relevance.

The chapter identifies several important areas of tourism economics that have yet to respond appropriately to the challenges posed by the Beyond GDP approach to economic development advocated widely across the social sciences. Taking this approach seriously implies a rethinking of societal goals, revising measures of progress, and according wellbeing outcomes a central place in policy analysis. It is argued that the continued neglect of wellbeing considerations has diminished the relevance of the tourism economics research effort and its policy significance in areas such as tourism and economic growth, sustainable development, destination competitiveness, special event and festival evaluation and tourism participation in the 2030 SDG agenda. Recognising that wellbeing is a primary policy objective, tourism economics must incorporate resident wellbeing outcomes into conceptual analysis, in tourism planning, development and policy assessment in a more inclusive way.