Circular Economy Contributions to the Tourism Sector: A Critical Literature Review

Abstract

Economic activity today is still based on a linear model of production and consumption: extract/produce and consume/throw, which exhausts natural resources and generates waste. The current linear economy does not optimize materials nor favour their recycling, reuse or recovery. Hence, the concept of Circular Economy (CE) has received increasing attention between policymakers and stakeholders worldwide. However, the literature on CE was mainly developed for the manufacturing sector, and only a few references are found on the tourism sector even though it is a sector where huge consumption of energy and water, food waste, congestion problems and CO2 emissions take place. This work aims to evaluate the importance of tourism in the CE literature and to identify current research trends and possible gaps in the literature on CE and tourism. In order to identify papers for this, the authors carried out a literature review of papers in the social science citation index (Web of Science) and Scopus. The keywords used are related to the tourism sector and CE, and the last search was made at the end of January 2020. Only papers published in English have been considered in the sample, which totals to 55 articles. Each contribution is analysed and, according to its content, classified into eight streams; then, the paper identifies two knowledge areas in tourism that this scientific production covers and the areas with lack of knowledge generated. Findings show that more research is needed about tourism’s intersection with CE in order to generate possible solutions towards a more sustainable tourism industry.

Socioeconomic Profile of Tourists with a Greater Circular Attitude and Behaviour in Hotels of a Sun and Beach Destination

“…The implementation of CE models and solutions is especially important at island destinations to reduce environmental impacts generated by tourism activity. Tourism businesses and destinations can take advantage of many CE initiatives to reduce the trend but also to achieve greater profitability, increasing revenues in the provision of services, for example, in the hotel sector [ 21 ]. In this sense, the aim of this paper was to analyse the attitude towards CE and the environmental behaviour and circular practices among tourists of a well-known mature sun and beach destination, Gran Canaria, in order to design the transition from a linear model to a circular model in the hotel industry of this destination.…”

“…In fact, a tourist generates twice as much garbage as a resident [ 20 ]. In the Canaries, this percentage is even higher; in fact, considering a resident population of 2,106,624 persons and 14,981,113 tourists arriving to the archipelago with an average stay of 9.36 days, tourists account for 26.7% of the total waste generated on the islands [ 21 ].…”

Exploring Circularity: A Review to Assess the Opportunities and Challenges to Close Loop in Nepali Tourism Industry

“…Tourism is a catalyst of the global economy, still there are negative consequences associated with tourism mainly rooted on the linear approach adopted by the sector highlighting the need to shift towards circular tourism (Rodríguez et al, 2020). Transition of the tourism activities to align them with the credentials of the circular economy can be found elsewhere and most of the eff orts have given emphasis to waste management and energy effi ciency (Pattanaro & Gente, 2017).…”

Understanding Multisided Platforms, Circular Economy and Tourism

“…Literature mainly focuses on the construction, energy and water consumption, utilization and new uses, and less on other relevant aspects, such as the need for a change in the business model, reuse of organic waste and synergies with agriculture, the circularity of tourist destinations, the application of CE as a model to achieve sustainable development of the local economy through synergies with tourism or the use of CEas a model to achieve inclusive and sustainable tourism with local development (Rodriguez, Florido,& Jacob,2020,p.21). Source: Rodríguez, Florido & Jacob, 2020, p. 9 Johnston et al (2007in Geissdoerfer, Savage, Bocken, & Hultink, 2017) estimated that there are around 300 defi nitions of sustainability. To cite but a few, sustainability can be defi ned as a situation in which human activity is conducted in a way that conserves the function of the earth's ecosystems (ISO, 15392, 2008), a transformation of human lifestyle that optimizes the likelihood that living conditions will continuously support security, well-being, and health, particularly by maintaining the supply of non-replaceable goods and services ( McMichael et al, 2003;in Geissdoerfer et al, 2017), or an indefi nite perpetuation of all life forms (Ehrenfeld,2005;in Geissdoerfer et al,2017).…”