Evidence-informed Sustainable Tourism: Governance, Policy and Practice

This book critically examines the role of evidence-informed decision-making in tourism planning, destination management, and policymaking, emphasizing its importance for sustainable tourism development. Through a blend of conceptual reflections and innovative empirical case studies from diverse international contexts, it highlights good practices such as participatory approaches, actionable simulations, and local systems thinking. This book also identifies gaps and challenges in enhancing evidence use, offering valuable insights for improving theory and practice in sustainable tourism.

Covering broad subject areas such as sustainable tourism, destination management, policymaking, and evidence-based planning, this book is ideal for academics, policymakers, tourism professionals, and students seeking to deepen their understanding of evidence-informed approaches in tourism development.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

Michael Volgger is Professor with the School of Management and Marketing at Curtin University in Australia. He is Curtin’s Discipline Lead of Tourism, Hospitality and Events. Michael’s areas of expertise span questions of transformation, governance and innovation in tourism destination management and consumer behaviour.

Joseph M. Cheer is Professor of Sustainable Tourism and Heritage in the School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University, Australia. From 2021 to 2025, Joseph ranked in the Top 2% of researchers in the Sport, Leisure and Tourism field. He has been Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Q1 journal Tourism Geographies since 2020

Christof Pforr is Professor of Tourism in the School of Management & Marketing at Curtin University, Australia. His past and current research is inter- and multidisciplinary and has focused on four interconnected areas: sustainability, tourism public policy, destination governance, and special interest tourism.