Abstract:
Starting in 2015, 169 states launched a series of initiatives aimed at pursuing achievement of the 2030 Agenda. In particular, one of the main sector interested in 2030 Agenda is represented by the Tourism sector. The centrality of Tourism enterprises is related to the considerable impacts on the landscapes in which they operate. On the point, academics and policy makers have started to discuss about the difficult for Tourism enterprises to adopt business model based on sustainable paradigms such as the circular economy. According to this evidence, this paper aims to analyze the scientific debate that has characterized the first 5 years after the introduction of the 2030 Agenda. Bibliometric analysis has been conducted on 101 articles about the relationship between SDGs and Tourism published during the period 2015–2019. The analysis reveals the existence of three independent clusters of research regarding the impacts on society (Red Cluster), business models (Blue Cluster) and policy implications (Green Cluster). An interpretative framework to evaluate the strategies adopted by tourism enterprises to contribute to the SDGs is then developed and discussed.
This paper aims to analyze the scientific debate that has characterized the first 5 years after the introduction of the 2030 Agenda. Bibliometric analysis has been performed on 101 articles that analyzed the relationship between tourism and SDGs. For our purposes, we considered the papers published during the period 2015–2019 on business and economics journal.
A systematic research on Web of Science (WoS) was conducted in March 2020. In order to avoid errors related to the identification of the papers, a research protocol has been developed. In detail, the period between 2015 and 2019 was the defined time span, running from the official launch of the 2030 Agenda to the last complete year available.
For our search, we identified and used the following keywords:TS = (SDG*OR “Sustainable Development Goal*”) AND Touris*
The density analysis (Fig. 2) reveals that a large number of academics (20) have based their research on the official 2030 Agenda released by United Nations (2015). In this sense, the analysis confirms a high degree of relationship between theory and practice. Furthermore, the absence of a consolidated group of cited documents confirms the novelty of the field.
However, the density analysis (Fig. 3) reveals that the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Tourism Management and Annal of Tourism Central are central in the debate due to their high degree of specialization. Thus, although the themes related to tourism enterprises could be published in non-sectorial journals, analysis of the SDGs has been characterized by a high degree of journal specialization.
Authors
The co-citation analysis reveals that 4599 authors have been considered within the papers, but only 27 of them have been cited at least 10 times (Table 5). Furthermore, analysis of the 10 most-cited authors reveals interesting insights. Although our research has only considered scientific papers, 3 of the 5 authors most widely cited are NGOs. Specifically, in their research, many academics have considered surveys and other publications from organizations such as the United Nations, the UN World Tourism Organization and UNESCO.
You must be logged in to post a comment.