Research in the area of sustainable tourism continues to grow, however a lack of understanding regarding necessary action inhibits progress. McCloskey’s ( 2015 McCloskey, S . (2015). Viewpoint: From MDGs to SDGs: We need a critical awakening to succeed. In S. McCloskey (Ed.), Policy and practice: A development education review (pp. 186–194). Carson, CA: Center for Global Education. [Google Scholar] ) critique regarding the failure of the MDGs, as a direct result of a lack of critical consciousness, and understanding of the structural contexts of poverty and under-development, provided the impetus for our work. McCloskey ( 2015 McCloskey, S . (2015). Viewpoint: From MDGs to SDGs: We need a critical awakening to succeed. In S. McCloskey (Ed.), Policy and practice: A development education review (pp. 186–194). Carson, CA: Center for Global Education. [Google Scholar] ) signals the important role of education in fostering transitions to sustainability. As such, we have applied our critical lens to the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Our paper offers tools for critically thinking through the potential for the SDGs to help shape the tourism industry for more sustainable, equitable, and just futures. We positioned six themes to serve as a conceptual framework for interrogating the SDG agenda in tourism; arising from our considerations of both reformist and radical pathways to sustainable transitions in tourism: critical tourism scholarship, gender in the sustainable development agenda, engaging with Indigenous perspectives and other paradigms, degrowth and the circular economy, governance and planning, and ethical consumption. We address these core themes as essential platforms to critique the SDGs in the context of sustainable tourism development, and highlight the cutting edge research carried out by our contributors in this special issue.

(2017). Critical thinking to realize sustainability in tourism systems: reflecting on the 2030 sustainable development goals. Journal of Sustainable Tourism: Vol. 25, No. 9, pp. 1201-1204.

Purpose: The overarching aim of this project is to understand the role women tourism social entrepreneurs (TSEs) play in contributing to regenerative practices in Canada.Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were carried out with women food TSEs with snowball sampling. This paper challenges the assumption that the masculine experience is the human experience. Accordingly, this research is informed by a feminist ethic of care lens to recognise the important role of Canadian women TSEs. Methodologically, the authors employed the strategies of a constructivist grounded theory to guide the analysis (Charmaz, 2011). This process involved carefully engaging in a close line by line reading of the transcripts, developing codes based on the authors’ dealings with the data including summarising, synthesising and sorting the data (Charmaz, 2011).Findings: The analysis revealed three categories: (1) Adopting a regenerative mindset and enhancing well-being, (2) Supporting the consumption of real food and (3) Educating communities for regenerative and just futures. The analysis revealed the importance of women TSEs in adopting a regenerative and caring mindset to enhance the well-being of their communities and beyond.Research limitations/implications: The study focusses on the learnings from 11 entrepreneurs from Canada. There is a scope to expand the discussion with more interviews. The impact of this pandemic on the small businesses resulted in affecting the researchers’ participation by presenting some unique challenges in participant recruitment. Maybe the studies in the near future will focus on grounding the research papers based on other sexual orientations and indigenous social entrepreneurs.Practical implications: The authors hope future studies centre diversity and attend to the role of women in their communities to better under the diverse contributions. The work presented here is part of a broader study on the role and impact of women TSEs and so only reveals the tip of the Canadian iceberg. Forthcoming studies will attend to some of the gender-specific barriers faced by women TSEs and the supports required particularly in the wake of COVID-19. The authors hope other scholars continue to build on this work, adopting feminist approaches to enhance our understanding of the role women play in contributing to just, caring and regenerative futures.Social implications: Contributing to Higgins-Desbiolles and Monga's (2021) in-depth case study using an ethic of care to examine an Australian events business supporting homeless individuals, the analysis of the 11 in-depth interviews with Canadian TSE provides evidence of alternative ways women are delivering social value. Using an ethic of care lens has elicited the impacts created by the informants and the ripple effects particularly in light of regenerative practices which are crucial in the tourism sector as borders and destinations reopen to tourism as noted by Ateljevic (2020).Originality/value: There are few studies in the tourism social entrepreneurship literature that recognise the agency and centres the vocies of women. Kimbu and Ngoasong (2016) made a call for more research to understand how women engage in social entrepreneurial activities and benefit their local communities. There are limited analyses on regenerative tourism in practice in the scholarly literature. To respond to this gap the authors examine the regenerative practices of women TSEs in Canada.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an international framework to improve global wellbeing, and SDG 4 Quality Education serves as a substructure to achieve sustainability. However, absent from the SDGs is explicit reference to critical thinking which is needed to contend with structures of power. Similarly, tertiary education systems globally are facing challenges due to appropriation by neoliberal agendas favouring capitalism over cogitation. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to propose a framework for bringing criticality to sustainable tourism education to strengthen SDG 4 and empower future decision- makers as Critical Tourism Citizens (CTC). A definition of a CTC is presented to further critical citizenship scholarship in tourism. This paper examines the role of criticality in advancing sustainability in tourism. Supported by empirical qualitative data, we propose a pedagogical framework that aids critical examination of tourism systems to advance sustainability in relation to the SDGs. The framework is positioned within current scholarship on global citizenship and critical citizenship education to propel theory into praxis.

Barcelona is an attractive location in Spain for tourism entrepreneurship; however, women are significantly under-represented. This study adopts a locally based perspective and a feminist ethic of care theoretical lens to give voice to tourism women entrepreneurs and members of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Barcelona. The aim of our analysis is to understand the culture of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and seeks to answer the following research question: How does an entrepreneurial ecosystem that operates in a tourism entrepreneurship context characterized by gendered barriers, find support through gender equity resources and policies? To address this question, we have applied feminist theory to analyze the semi-structured interviews with female entrepreneurs and individuals committed to Barcelona’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Our analysis revealed three main gender equity-related issues i.) Hunting and caring: The Gender Entrepreneurship Division; ii.) Social Conditioning and gender norms: Reinforcing Gender Inequities and iii.) Entrepreneuring and the Motherhood Penalty. Our findings draw attention to gender biases and opportunities to enhance equity in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Barcelona by employing an ethic of care and committing to diversification. We offer a theoretical framework to understand and respond to gender inequities to enhance the success of women tourism entrepreneurs.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework provides a set of 17 goals aiming to enhance global well-being by reducing poverty, enhancing health outcomes, responding to gender equality, and mobilizing social justice and peace efforts. Tourism has been centered as playing a key role in marshaling the SDGs, mainly due to its economic impact as a leading global sector. With the onset of the pandemic, it is incumbent upon scholars to take the pulse and consider the broader backdrop inhibiting SDG progress, with the intention of considering how tourism may be a vehicle for progressing the goals. As such, our analysis may serve to be useful for national and local governments, policy advisors, tourism establishments, and enterprises, as well as visitors and host communities. Specifically, we need to attend to some of the challenges inhibiting progress, scrutinize the use of language, which may lead to misinterpretation, and attend to the lack of clarity for building policies supporting decision making. Thus, the aim of this commentary is to examine some of the critiques and challenges inhibiting the realization of the goals, including a lack of awareness, and understanding of the SDGs, including what each goal entails, the division of power, the role of governance, stakeholders, and financial support required for policy and decision making, along with addressing the misconceptions surrounding the implementation of sustainable approaches. Understanding some of the critiques and challenges of the SDGs may improve our understanding of the potential role the tourism sector may play in progressing the goals.