In pursuit of sustainable tourism – a never-ending journey

Tourism is New Zealand’s second-largest export earner, bringing in more than $40 billion a year and responsible for 7.7 percent of GDP. The country needs tourism, but on the other side of the ledger are carbon emissions, depletion of natural resources, and strain on local communities.

More than 70 percent of travellers are increasingly concerned about the impact of their holidays. Tourism businesses, in turn, face growing expectations to demonstrate that they take sustainability seriously.

But what does becoming a sustainable tourism business actually mean? Some people might imagine a checklist; measuring emissions, managing waste, water, and energy use, supporting the local community.

Tick enough boxes, get a sustainability certification – and voilà, sustainable tourism! 

Behind the label, however, it’s far more complicated. A checklist of good practices is helpful, but true sustainability is rarely straightforward. To understand how this process unfolds in practice, my doctoral research asks how do tourism firms become more sustainable?

The research involved a deep dive into 13 tourism firms, from accommodation providers to tour operators, and conducting interviews with 34 individuals - mainly staff responsible for managing and implementing the firm’s sustainability initiatives. 

Site visits helped clarify how sustainability initiatives were integrated into daily routines, and analysis of the businesses; marketing communications revealed how the firm’s sustainability practices changed over time.

Across firms, a common sustainability journey emerged. Firms tend to move through three recurring stages: consideration and implementation, integration and alignment, and collaboration and advocacy.

In the first stage, firms became aware of the need to adopt sustainability practices. Some were driven by personal values, inspired by passionate employees, or changing consumer expectations.

But getting started is difficult. Sustainability often feels overwhelming, and many firms get trapped in cycles of consideration and implementation – trying to figure out what to do, and how to do it.

In the second stage, firms must figure out how to embed sustainability practices throughout their operations. The focus shifts from “What sustainability initiatives can we do?” to “How does sustainability fit with how we operate?”

For example, composting often involves working with suppliers to ensure materials are compostable, changing visitor sorting behaviour, and developing firm infrastructure and routines to manage and use the compost created.

Successful sustainability initiatives often requires collaboration with other firms, experts, or local communities. In some cases, success also led firms to advocate for broader industry support around sustainability initiatives, or for other firms to adopt similar practices.

For all firms, experimentation was key to success. A business would move forward, then get stuck, and often end up back at stage one – rethinking what didn’t work, and how to do it better next time around.

Because firms pursue many sustainability initiatives at once, they are often managing multiple cycles simultaneously. Progress in one area can occur alongside setbacks in another or create unexpected ripple effects elsewhere in the business.

Lessons learned shape how firms approach subsequent cycles. Employees get better at identifying problems, testing solutions, and adapting to changing circumstances. Collaborative networks grow, giving firms access to new knowledge and resources. These, in turn, create new cycles of experimentation and learning.

This cyclical view reveals the messiness that linear accounts of sustainability tend to hide. Progress is uneven, interconnected and sometimes contradictory.

Certifications and tick-box exercises make sustainability easier to understand and measure. However, they can oversimplify sustainability and fail to capture the ongoing work and skills required to implement, maintain, or expand sustainability initiatives.

This matters because the sustainability goal posts keep moving. New technologies become available, regulations change, and public expectations evolve. A sustainability initiative considered ambitious today might be the bare minimum tomorrow. Research shows the lessons firms learn could be just as important as the milestones they reach.