Trends in sustainable tourism paradigm : resilience and adaptation

Mihalič, Tanja (author)

In recent decades, sustainable tourism has emerged as a central paradigm, attracting growing scholarly interest. External factors, such as the SDGs, climate change agendas, smart and digitalized tourism, cyber and astronaut travel, pandemics, and shifting trends in economic competitiveness, mass tourism, and overtourism, are shaping the 21st-century paradigmatic landscape, challenging both the theoretical “what” and practical “how” of the sustainable tourism paradigm. Using Kuhn’s paradigmatic framework and the Web of Science bibliometric database from 1991 to 2022, this analysis traces trends in sustainable tourism research, advances in academic communication through influential co-citation networks and interdisciplinarity, and the emergence of alternative and quasi-paradigms. The findings suggest, first, a positive trend in tourism scholarly research production; second, weak and diverse communication and interdisciplinarity, as scholars do not sufficiently collaborate in co-citations; and third, the coexistence of the sustainable tourism paradigm with numerous alternative, rival, and quasi-paradigms. The lack of influential knowledge communication highlights the need for the academic tourism community to reconsider its knowledge generation practices. Enhanced collaboration through co-citation and interdisciplinary cooperation is crucial for fostering a deeper and shared understanding of multiple tourism-related concepts. Further thematic and interactive research is needed on the resilience and adaptability of the sustainable tourism paradigm. This article contributes to advancing sustainable tourism scholarship by advocating for a more influential and adaptable paradigm to ensure its relevance amidst emerging challenges.

• Language: English
• Keywords: sustainable development, sustainable tourism paradigm, resilience, competing paradigms, interdisciplinary integration
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.02 - Review Article
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: 17 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 16, iss. 17, article no. 7838
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-171496
• UDC: 338.48
• ISSN on article: 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su16177838
• COBISS.SI-ID: 207380483
• Publication date in RUL: 27.08.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Sustainability
• Shortened title: Sustainability
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2071-1050
• COBISS.SI-ID: 5324897

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: turizem, resilience, trajnostni razvoj

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P5-0117-2018
• Name: Trajnostna konkurenčnost slovenskega gospodarstva v evropskem in globalnem okviru