Sustainable Tourism Supranational Policies and the Wellbeing — Gaps and Challenges From the Hosts’ and the Guests’ Perspective

Abstract

The year 2017 was declared by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development. Tourism is seen as a “driver of development and peace, promoting the harmonious co-existence of people from all countries” (Beijing Declaration 2016). A principle of sustainable tourism is to “build sustainable cities and communities”. From this perspective, tourism should support the wellbeing of all actors involved. Wellbeing of hosts, should be achieved when sustainable tourism guidelines are fulfilled. Wellbeing of guests is necessary to make any destination attractive for tourism. The question posed in this paper, however, challenges that view. The paper presents a theoretical analysis of wellbeing in relation to sustainable tourism and to hosting and guest communities. The first section talks about wellbeing conceptual backgrounds including Social Indicators, index of life quality based on values, subjective wellbeing or responsible wellbeing one. The second section focuses on the analysis of wellbeing in sustainable tourism conceptual background, including the differences between the guidelines provided by WTO (2005), and the latest guidelines published by UNWTO ((United Nations World Tourism Organization)) and UNGA in 2015. The third section juxtaposes wellbeing conceptual background with tourism, the most prominent gaps and challenges of wellbeing regarding hosting communities and tourists.

Investigating the intersection between sustainable tourism and community-based tourism

“…Community-based tourism should aim for the empowerment and sustainability of underprivileged communities (Tasci et al, 2013). On the same line and, arguably, part of the same general picture is that also tourism must be holistically understood, as its footprint should be measured in terms of both its economic value and pressure on both the nature and culture in host nations (Dłużewska & Rodzos, 2018).…”

“…In the last six decades, the tourism sector has continued to expand to assume the position of the fastestgrowing sector of the economy in the world (Dłużewska & Rodzos, 2018). Besides, the tourism sector has proven to be resilient to the economic crisis and specifi c shocks such as terrorism attacks (Frangialli, 2005).…”

“…Th e tourism sector also continues to produce class and regional inequalities, fuelling economic, environmental, and social problems (Tosun, Timothy, & Öztürk, 2003). It is also recognized its impacts protrude to putting heavy pressure on culture and the environment (Dłużewska & Rodzos, 2018). Th ese negative issues have cast doubt on tourism's reliability as a strategy for growth in developing countries (Tosun et al, 2003).…”

From Conventional to Alternative Tourism: Rebalancing Tourism towards a Community-Based Tourism Approach in Hanoi, Vietnam

“…Sci. 2021, 10, 176 2 of 22 the largest sectors in many world economies (Comerio and Strozzi 2019;Dłużewska and Rodzos 2018).…”

The Determinants of Tourist Expenditure Per Capita in Thailand: Potential Implications for Sustainable Tourism

“…However, they do not address the financial needs of the local economy. Dluzewska and Rodzoś [9] mentioned that the local community hardly perceives the benefits of sustainable development schemes because they do not associate such policies with improvements in their social wellbeing. Consequentially, tourist operators would opt to develop the local economy and not include environmental measures unless there is a monetary incentive [10].…”