Research

Sustainability approaches and nature tourism development

Abstract

This article shows how combinations of different sustainability approaches of tourism entrepreneurs and other actors restrict nature tourism development in a nature park context. Drawing on the literature on nature tourism and sustainable entrepreneurship and a case study of a Danish nature park, we show how different actors' sustainability orientations cannot clearly be assigned specific theoretical sustainability approaches. Instead, they express different degrees of focus on various parameters of sustainability, thereby shaping the actors' ‘sustainability DNA’. The analysis shows how different DNAs are incommensurable and that this limits nature tourism development. The incommensurability arises from underlying ontological beliefs about sustainability, including the reasons for which sustainability is included in organisational strategies. We suggest a root-cause model to help solve conflicts arising from the incommensurability.

Info

Journal Article, 2021

UN SDG Classification
DK Main Research Area

    Social Science

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