Abstract
The experts consider sustainability as one of the most noticeable trends during and after the pandemic. For that reason, this chapter seeks to deepen the weight that sustainability has acquired in the tourism sector from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve this goal, a systematic bibliometric review on sustainability in tourism will be carried out. To carry out this analysis, the authors will search the words “sustainability + tourism + covid” in titles, keywords, and abstracts on Scopus from 2020 until June of 2021. Analysed manuscripts emphasize the role of sustainability in a sector hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic that has led in changes in people touristic behaviour patterns. This chapter shows that a more sustainable awareness emerges from new touristic consumption trends and that companies that have adapted to these new trends are those that could be better positioned in the new context.
TopIntroduction
In 1987 the concept of Sustainable Development acquired international relevance with the publication of the Brundtland Report, also known as Our Common Future, where sustainable development was defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). Since then, the concept of sustainability has been extended to different areas, including tourism. At first, some considered the concept of sustainable tourism as a type of innovative tourism. Nowadays, sustainable is no longer considered a type of tourism, but something inherent in any tourist practice and that consumers are increasingly valued, in parallel with the growth of the society concern for sustainability. It is possible to establish in the 60s the beginning of the academic concern on the negative effects of the tourism, when concepts as tourism carrying capacity begins to be widely applied. Gradually, these concepts are replaced by a more integrative concept as sustainable tourism. But it is not until the 80-90’s that this concept is considered as part of the economic and political structures in tourism (Mowforth & Munt, 1998). Currently, sustainability can be linked to almost all types and scales of tourism activities and environments (Clarke, 1997).
This evolution of sustainability comes from a greater knowledge and concern about the impacts of tourism and environmental problems in general (Holden, 2003). The mass tourism of certain destinations gave rise to problems in the environment, and the future of these destinations was, and still is, in doubt. For example, in the case of Spain, the negative impacts became evident quite early in the mass destinations of the Mediterranean coast, where the urbanization to meet touristic demand has left a severely damaged landscape (García, 2017). During the 1980s, these changes also seemed to threaten the viability and image of this industry (Robinson, 1996). In the 21st century, there are more and more policies that consider tourism sustainability, based on the three pillars of a sustainable model: the economic, environmental and social (Svensson & Wagner, 2015). And under the most used definition of sustainable tourism: Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social, and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment, and host communities (World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), 2005). The current consumption of Western societies has already led to new forms of consumption that take this concept into account, such as the case of ecotourism (Saarinen, 2006). Tourists demand more individual, hybrid and environmentally conscious products (Hughes, 2004). Thus, these new trends and new alternative forms of consumption were strongly supported by the rhetoric of sustainability (Cohen, 2002). Despite the concept of sustainability is well established in contemporary society, some authors argue that the sustainable development model has largely failed to address social and environmental challenges of the 21st century. According to Galvani et al. (2020) true sustainability will only occur when valued as part of the daily life taken for granted of people and cultures around the world. Therefore, would still be a great deal to come up with a truly sustainable and global model.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Gentrification: It is a process mainly related to tourism by which the neighbourhoods of large cities have been transformed. The houses that previously belonged to mostly old and lower-middle class people have been bought by investors and companies. These dwellings have been transformed into offices and workplaces, or into houses for touristic use. With this the number of homes for rent or sale for individuals has been decreasing and the price increasing, making it possible to buy or rent in these neighbourhoods only for middle-upper class people. As a result, the neighbourhoods have been modified, the old neighbourhood shops intended to supply the former residents have been disappearing, and the streets have been filled with tourists who in many cases have caused problems to the residents who still live there. New businesses have emerged for these tourists, and for the workers of the workplaces established in these neighbourhoods. The problem of gentrification has been exacerbated by the pandemic caused by the Covid-19, as these holiday homes have been left empty due to travel restrictions. Like the houses that were transformed into offices and workplaces, by an increase in telework, also in the wake of the pandemic. All this has turned old neighbourhoods of residents into inhabited urban centres.
COVID-19 Pandemic: It is a pandemic originated by the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the Covid-19 disease. The Covid-19 pandemic was originated in Wuhan (China), at the end of 2019, expanding to the rest of the world in a very short time. SARS-CoV-2 virus is a type of virus highly infectious and contagious, with a great speed of spread. This speed of spread caused the collapse of the health systems of multiple countries during 2020, because is a type of virus for which, as of September 2021, no cure has been found. But for which different vaccines have been created in less than a year since the emergence of the virus. These vaccines do not exempt from infection, but they reduce the virulence of the health effects caused by the virus, lowering the chances of hospital admission and/or death. The pandemic caused the house confinement of millions of people in many countries, self and mandatory quarantines, the closure of international borders, the ban of travel and social activities, the imposition of social distances between people, and/or the use of masks. Has been a crisis of a much higher magnitude than previous crises, having incomparable consequences to the economy and a fall in the activity that will probably be historic. In addition of countless economic losses, the pandemic has impacted in the day to day of millions of people. Has led to more than 4.7 million deaths and more than 229 million people infected.
New Normal: It is an expression of recent use that has emerged in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Its use goes beyond informal contexts, as many governments, and even international organizations, as the World Health Organization or The Europol, are making use of this term. It has been used since the mandatory confinement of 2020 that occurred in many countries as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic began to be lifted. It was a way of naming what was going to be the new normal in people’s lives once those confinements were over. This expression was meant to explain to people that life as we knew it before was not going to be the same. Thereafter, protocols had to be followed that would change the day-to-day. For example, the obligation of distance between people; temporary restrictions on mobility; mandatory use of masks; restrictions on the maximum number of people allowed in meetings, restaurants, establishments... In September 2021 many of these restrictions are still active, despite the fact that a significant percentage of the population is vaccinated, especially in Europe. The citizens seem to have assumed this expression as something no longer temporary, since it is more than likely that many things will not return to the way they were before the pandemic and that what we are living now is really the new and permanent normality.
Scopus: It is a free abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, electronically accessible. Scopus allows to search authors and sources (scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings), as well as source metrics scores. Authors can be searched by author last name; author first name; affiliation, and by ORCID number. Sources can be searched by subject area; title; publisher, and by ISSN. In Scopus these source metrics scores are called CiteScore. These metrics scores measures, compares and ranks the quality and the impact of the published scientific journals articles. To perform the metric of each journal, Scopus calculates each year the citations of the last 4 years and divide into the published documents of the same last 4 years. For example, to calculate 2021 CiteScore, the mathematical operations to be performed would be: Citations from 2018 to 2021/Documents from 2018 to 2021.
Sustainability Tourism: In 1987 the concept of Sustainable Development acquired international relevance with the publication of the Brundtland Report, also known as Our Common Future, where sustainable development was defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs . Since then, the concept of sustainability has been extended to different areas, including tourism. At first, some considered the concept of sustainable tourism as a type of innovative tourism. Nowadays, sustainable is no longer considered a type of tourism, but something inherent in any tourist practice and that consumers are increasingly valued. There are many definitions of sustainable tourism, one of the most popular and broadly accepted definition of sustainable tourism is that given by Carbone, in the book Making Tourism More Sustainable: Sustainable Tourism is Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities . This definition is complemented by the twelve aims that address economic, social, and environmental impacts in a sustainable tourism plan. These aims are: Economic viability, local prosperity, employment quality, social equity, visitor fulfilment, local control, community well-being, cultural richness, physical integrity, biological diversity, resource efficiency, and environmental purity
Systematic Review: Is an analytic review using quantitative and qualitative analytical methods on the scientific literature in a given field of knowledge. Its main objective is to summarize the secondary sources available accurately and reliably. There are some protocols to conduct a systematic review that can be follow, as PRISMA2020. As well as many techniques and automatic tools and software. The usual steps to conduct a systematic review are: Raise a research question; make a preliminary search; chose searching databases and search terms; establish exclusion and inclusion criteria; report the number of selected manuscripts; download and screen the selected manuscripts; extract the information (most of systematic review limited the analysis to title, abstract and keywords, but it can be extended to the entire manuscript); apply quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis; write, revise and submitted the manuscript.
PRISMA 2020: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses statement, was published first in 2009 and has been updated in 2020. Is a tool to support systematic reviewers that helps to report why the review was done, what the authors did, and what they found. Includes a 27-item checklist, an expanded checklist, and flow diagrams. It is freely accessible on the web http://www.prisma-statement.org/ . Key documents are the checklist; the flow diagram; the statement; and the document with explanations to elaborate the report. The 27-item checklist includes recommendations for each item. There are four flow diagrams available depending on whether the review is original or an updated one. And depending on whether the review included searches of databases and registers only or included searches of databases, registers, and other sources.