Exploring the Relationship between Tourism and Sustainable Development Goals. Evidence Based on Content Analysis

Abstract

The tourism industry is a leading sector interested in the 2030 Agenda and represents one of its primary constituencies. It is increasingly acknowledged as the driving economic force in several nations, there has arisen the need for a sustainable paradigm for this industry, being included in two of the 17 goals for sustainable development- 8.9 and 12.7b with the most relevance to the tourist industry. In this light, this study aims to investigate the research area of the most significant consequences of tourism in connection to the objectives of sustainable development by mapping the relevant literature based on an analysis of its content. To accomplish the goal of the study, 245 papers from the Google Academics database spanning the years 2015-2021 have been taken out. The empirical findings revealed that the body of the scientific articles contains the terms “tourist,” “sustainable development,” “environment,” “SGDs,” “culture,” “local,” “industry,” and “community” most often. The empirical data stress the following word combinations as being the most encountered when looking at the most correlated words within the scientific content of the papers. These word combinations are as follows: sustainable-development-tourism, economic-goals, tourismsupport- impact-future, local-resources-management, sustainable-community, or study-related-sustainabilityenvironmental are some topics that might be discussed. In addition, the findings of the topic modeling showed the presence of four primary categories of subjects that are covered by this region, as follows: The first topic, “Topic 1,” investigates the connection between tourism and the environment. In contrast, the second topic, “Topic 2,” examines the implications of tourism regarding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Topic 3, “Topic 3,” is about the connection between tourism and local economies, and the final topic is about the connection between tourism and cultural heritage.