Following a long history of using various strategies and policies for diversification and seasonal adjustment in the face of the challenges of achieving economic, social, and environmental sustainability, sun and beach destinations should also consider targeting the wellness tourism market as a post pandemic opportunity and long-term solution. Salou is a mature sun and beach destination in the Mediterranean, but one which, for some time, has had an increasing commitment to family and sports tourism as a result of a strategic renewal process. Now, with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the destination management organization is considering the evolution of the model, the internalization of sustainability as a fundamental value, and the impact of different markets. In this study, we examined the challenges the Salou Tourist Board has faced during the development of a post pandemic model for sustainable tourism and what strategies it has adopted in response. We also considered the opportunities and competitive advantages that Salou has in the field of wellness tourism. The results obtained should encourage the continuation of work that promotes the environmental axis of sustainability and adds value to the natural resources on which it depends, including the sea and the landscape, while maintaining the environmental quality of the resources.

The article carries out a systematic literature review on the social impact of research in all fields of study. To this end, this study has compiled the publications on the subject using the Web of Science database, and the most relevant terms have been mapped using the VOSviewer tool. The aim of the article is to advance and provide knowledge on the key aspects to be taken into account for research to generate social benefits and to analyse the main methods and instruments used to assess the social impact of research. At the same time, this article serves as a point of reflection to raise awareness, on a recent topic, of the limitations that arise in evaluation and research gaps that can be addressed in future research. This line of research has been in existence for just over 10 years. International programmes, such as Horizon Europe, highlight the impact channels and, in the field of social sciences, specific methodologies such as communicative communication are being developed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to analyse the subject from a global point of view, without specifying the field of study, providing a conceptual map of the subject.

Tourism offering well-being practices in nature has increased exponentially in recent years. The scientific interest in this subject has also grown at a similar rate, from both a theoretical and a methodological perspective. We present a bibliometric analysis using the search terms “tourism”, “well-being”, and “nature” disclosed in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Combining quantitative and visual methods, we analyse 443 records on this topic according to seven items: productivity evolution, overlapping, geographical distribution, research areas, most important keywords, main sources, and most cited articles. The results show a growing interest in this topic as well as a need to review the literature in the two databases, conducting a search from a multidisciplinary approach.

Alternative metrics are increasingly used to measure the social impact of research. This article seeks to analyze the social impact of research in the field of tourism. For this purpose, we will determine the extent to which the articles in this field reach society by examining the scores they achieve on social media and studying the correlation between scientific impact and social impact. Altmetric information will be used for data extraction and analysis. The results show a low correlation between citations and the Altmetric Attention Score (AAS), as well as a presence that is not captured by most publications in the field of study. Interestingly, publications with higher AASs are concentrated in the same journals. The article concludes by determining that alternative metrics can be used to complement academic impact but cannot be a substitute for it. Further progress is needed in the development of a framework that unifies both impacts.

Enhancing urban heritage can benefit the local community, but development has a negative impact on both the landscape and the social environment. The Viñales Valley (Cuba) is a priority hub of tourism development where ecotourism and cultural tourism have rapidly increased. The lack of hotel accommodation has contributed to the growth of room rental in private houses in Viñales, a protected world heritage landscape. The aim of this study is to determine the impact of home stay tourism on Viñales, both in physical terms (modifications to housing and the urban landscape) and in social terms (the changes and ‘benefits and losses’ perceived by the owners/hosts of the homes available for rent). The inventory we made detected 392 rental homes and we interviewed 74 landlords. The most clearly negative results are that renting out accommodation for tourists is the direct cause of the reduction in urban green spaces, the use of new building materials or the emergence of modern architectural structures. In social terms, the management of tourist activity is principally shouldered by women, leads to changes to daily habits and transforms the home into a work space. Finally, this activity causes social problems because of the emergence of social differences.

This article aims to advance the methodology for assessing the social impact of tourism research. An evaluation framework was designed to measure social impact in three stages—ex-ante, in-itinere and ex-post—and the ex-post evaluation was applied to a tourism research project, the POLITUR project, to test its validity. The collected information originated from interviews and documentary material. The analysis was structured according to six main areas—communication and promotion, policies and regulation, economic benefit, new technological resources, environment and social improvements—and four dimensions—temporal, applied, geographical and sustainability. The results are followed by a discussion of the domains and dimensions of the social impact assessment of tourism research. The need for further improvement in methods for measuring the social impact of tourism research and the importance of research that generates social impact are highlighted.