Sustainable tourism, progress, challenges and opportunities: an introduction

The term sustainable tourism emerged in the late 1980s and has become firmly established in both tourism policies and strategies and tourism research (Hall, 2011). After more than 25 years of attention it is timely to consider the state of research and practice in sustainable tourism. This special volume was established with exactly that goal in mind and this introduction seeks to set the context for this critical examination and reflection on sustainable tourism. Another objective of this introduction was to briefly describe the range of contributions selected for this SV. The articles are organised into four thematic areas of research: community stakeholders' perspectives and business approaches to sustainability in tourism, cultural responses, and methodological challenges related to sustainability. The articles shine a light on issues of importance within sustainable tourism, and in so doing, it is hoped that researchers from other disciplines and backgrounds are encouraged to consider investigating the inter-relationships between societal sustainability and tourism more broadly. The authors of this SV also sought to do something different from the majority of previous papers, which is to bring these issues to readers primarily concerned with sustainability rather than only with tourism. Before briefly discussing the contributions that make up the SV, this introduction provides a discussion of the inter-relationships between tourism and sustainability, a consideration of the ongoing challenges inherent in tackling sustainability and tourism, and a brief overview of the potential for tourism to contribute to the transformative changes required to move to truly sustainable societies. The introduction is concluded with an optimistic look into the future of sustainability-driven work in tourism.