The slow tourism movement is gaining popularity as more destinations focus on the local environment and heritage experience. The approach to slow tourism usually occurs either when traditional destinations exhaust their life cycle with an evident reduction in sustainability, or when newly emerging destinations decide to develop in this way. The case of Madeira is different; the island has several decades of tourism development without excessive pressure or overcrowding, and in planning for the future it wants to sustain these conditions. Seeking to understand Madeira’s perception of the development model, we surveyed entrepreneurs in Madeira’s lodging, restaurant and bar, shopping, transportation, intermediation, and tourist activity industries, as well as its public sector. Even without having encountered the popularized the ideas of slow tourism, Madeira’s tourism entrepreneurs show significant alignment with the values of quieter tourism. In contrast to its mature counterparts (i.e., Europe’s other popular sun and beach destinations), for Madeira it is not a question of destroying or rehabilitating, but rather of continuing sustainable development processes. Our results suggest that although slow tourism is typically a reaction to a very advanced phase of the life cycle, it can be the result of an endogenous impulse, as is true for Madeira.

Sustainable development raises various challenges in terms of UPR for putting public policies into effect, and the concept, namely about the definition of metrics, is adapted to small parcels of territory. The objective of the present study is to introduce an alphanumeric reading scale for the tourism sustainability indicators in UPR, to be precise, Madeira and the Azores to allow a better interpretation and understanding. A total of 25 indicators were compared in the last 5 years and with the COVID-19 pandemic, although there are positive performances, a lack of data was observed for some indicators, and some lack of information in the last 2 years or more. During the last 5 years, the pillar of environmental sustainability has maintained its ideal form, but in comparison with the last 2 years, it has moved to critical status, which is in part a consequence of the lack of recorded data. There are indicators that are not registered on the UPR and some data from Turismo de Portugal refer only to the mainland zone. The major implication is raised in terms of the existing indicator systems, which are not all provided periodically, influencing the interpretation of the indicators of Portuguese UPR. Consequently, assertive, sustainable decisions are difficult to be taken based on non-existent or insufficient data.

Purpose: This study aimed to identify scientific research concentrating on climate change impacts on accommodation services and examine the most relevant outputs related to management strategies due to exposure to climate change. Methodology: It used a systematic review of the literature of scientific articles published in the Web of Science and SCOPUS. The search strings were validated by academics, who suggested adding more keywords for studying the relationship between accommodation settings and climate change. As a result, four search strings were established and identified 39 articles for qualitative analysis with MAXQDA. Findings: Some studies asserted that corporate social responsibility is important for mitigating climate change issues. hotels work together with local businesses, enforcing the community’s adaptive capacity to climate change and supporting the need for education and training programs to understand climate change risks better. Moreover, green human resources management directly relates to the level of environmental awareness in local communities. Using air conditioning for combating heat waves consumes high amounts of energy. One option lies in energy-efficient buildings such as passive houses, using compact designs for reducing the cost of operation. Currently, hotel operations rely more on being more transparent regarding informing guests and influencing eco-friendly choices. On the other hand, there is an investment in training employees regarding good practices for energy use and management. Such action leads to accountable energy savings. Nevertheless, hotels still struggling to adapt because of their elevated energy consumption for heating, hot water, lightning, or cooling aggregates.

Critical thoughts about tourist destinations overcoming and mitigating impacts from COVID-19 lie in the opportunities created by the pandemic. In this paper, an innovative way to attract tourists to Madeira Island and specifically for the Caminho Real (CR) is proposed, assisted by augmented reality. There are important considerations for developing software suitable for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets; values and benefits for sustainable tourism development and for being an educational experience respecting social distancing; and services included in the augmented reality application. Therefore, some propositions are presented to evaluate the possibility of augmented reality as a secure opportunity to show historical, cultural, and ethnographic aspects when visiting a tourist destination, while respecting social-distancing constraints.

There were few previsions to strongly expand the growth of scuba diving activity, and nowadays training standards are enforced for safety and also for respecting the natural space where dive tourism takes place. Based on literature review, environmental impacts were noted in terms of providing positive aspects, mainly represented by economic benefits and employment opportunities. The negative side was revealed by wildlife impacts whereby animals change their behavior due harassment or contact with nature-based users, with authors reporting their concerns and measuring the consequences and long-term learning impacts. The over-usage of the reefs can result in physical devastation and chemical contamination. Land development in support of scuba diving can also cause negative impacts and affect the surrounding infrastructure, with alternating living patterns and by creating economic differences among the local society. When dive techniques are mastered, scuba diving itself does not represent a threat to the environment, neither to marine animals, but bad dive practices, poor buoyancy control associated to the lack of awareness can contribute to damage the benthic zone. Divers physical impact on the reef can benefit some species looking for opportunity to feed or compete for space, although, it destroys the habitat and lifting up sediment affect negatively coral structures by inducing stress and reducing the average amount of light.