Bartolomé Deyà-Tortella

As global water resources face growing pressures from climate change and population growth, understanding the factors driving water stress becomes crucial. The tourism sector, one of the fastest-growing economic sectors worldwide, plays a pivotal role in this dynamic, often exacerbating water scarcity in regions with water stress. This paper explores this critical relationship through a theoretical framework based on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis, introducing, as a novelty, water stress as the dependent variable through the water exploitation index plus (WEI+). The findings support the EKC hypothesis, revealing a non-linear yet diminishing effect of tourism volume—measured by international tourist overnights—on WEI+. This trend may be attributed to the fixed components of tourism-related water consumption and the adoption of water conservation practices by tourism enterprises. The findings also indicate that countries with intensive tourism tend to exhibit a lower EKC intercept compared to those with lower tourism intensity, likely due to heightened pressure on policymakers and businesses to curtail water consumption. By illustrating the varying impacts of tourism on water use across different income levels and regional contexts, this paper highlights the need for adaptive and region-specific strategies for water resource management.

Water is a key scarce resource. Therefore, most hotels place written messages in their rooms to promote guests’ water-saving behaviors. Existing research has focused on how nudges prompt towel reuse, reducing water consumption indirectly. We examine the impact of a boost—that fosters people’s competences—on direct water consumption in the shower, tap, and toilet. We conducted two field studies in Mallorca, Spain, in 2022 and 2023, at 14 hotel rooms equipped with digital water meters. In treatment rooms, guests were exposed to a leaflet informing them about water scarcity in Mallorca and of ways to save water in the hotel room. In the control condition, rooms had no leaflets. The results show that the boost had no impact on guests’ water savings—but on towel reuse. Our findings, with important implications for hotel management and policy making, show some limits of boosts for direct water conservation and reveal a possible form of greenwashing.

Despite a growing concern over sustainability in tourism, research on this domain, regarding, specifically, lake destinations, is still scarce. Although perceptions on lake destinations have been studied, no study is known that has analyzed the impact of visitors’ perceptions on satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Thus, this paper aims to develop and test a model to analyze the effect of lake visitors’ perceptions of destination’s sustainability on both satisfaction and loyalty towards lake destinations. A questionnaire survey was conducted in the Shchuchinsk-Burabay resort area, an important lake destination in Northern Kazakhstan. The results support the proposed lake destination loyalty model, tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Sustainability proved to be decisively influential, with water quality being the dimension with the highest impact on satisfaction with the lakes, along with a positive key impact of other dimensions of perceptions of the lakes being the absence of congestion. In addition, both water quality and lack of congestion had, conjointly with other features, a significant indirect impact on satisfaction with lake destinations and on loyalty. Based on the research findings, theoretical conclusions and practical implications are drawn.

Despite a growing concern over sustainability in tourism, research on this domain regarding, specifically, lake destinations, is still scarce. Although perceptions on lake destinations have been studied, no study is known that analyses the impact of visitors’ perceptions on satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Thus, this paper aims to develop and test a model to analyse the effect of lake visitors’ perceptions of destination’s sustainability on both satisfaction and loyalty towards lake destinations. A questionnaire survey was conducted in the Shchuchinsk-Burabay resort area, an important lake destination in northern Kazakhstan. The results support the proposed lake destination loyalty model, tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Sustainability proved to be decisively influential, with water quality being the dimension with the highest impact on satisfaction with the lakes, along with a positive key impact of the absence of congestion. In addition, both water quality and lack of congestion had a significant indirect impact on satisfaction with the lake destination, and on loyalty. Based on the research findings, theoretical conclusions and practical implications are drawn.