The sustainability approach applied to tourism has been taking shape as a dominant paradigm in tourism research, as well as becoming a requirement to achieve tourism competitiveness. This paper focuses specifically on the application of both concepts to protected areas, as tourist destinations. A bibliometric approach is adopted to provide information about the patterns and trends in the accumulation of knowledge related to this field, as well as to map its social, conceptual, and intellectual structure. Both evaluative and relational techniques are used to analyse the papers published until August 2019 and collected in the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. The results indicate that the research field has experienced significant growth in the last decade, with institutions of the USA and Australia as stimuli of scientific progress in this field. This study finds eight thematic clusters, although there is subject dispersion within each cluster, linked to the emerging and multidisciplinary nature of the field. Based on the working lines open, the study also identifies possible future approaches, linked to the incorporation of the perspectives and objectives of the different stakeholders, and the development of indicators to monitor and control dimensions of interest.

One of the tourism industry’s segments with the strongest growth rates today is health tourism. Health tourism includes two subgroups: medical tourism (traveling outside one’s country of residence for the purpose of receiving medical care, such as surgery and health services) and wellness tourism (travel to specific locations for health promotion in a preventive way). The economic strength and sustainable growth of nations can both benefit from health tourism. This study applies a methodology to quantify the potential of Portuguese wellness tourism (thermal spas in Northern Portugal) using a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) tool, namely the preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE) and geometrical analysis for interactive aid (GAIA), to achieve a robust evaluation and ranking the alternatives. Therefore, in this study, the aim is to rank ten thermal spas in Northern Portugal in terms of fifteen indicators, mostly related to digital services, containing the tourism data obtained between 2020 and 2022. The suggested approach offers trustworthy and reliable outcomes for any qualitative or quantitative criteria to assess thermal spas, which is crucial for consumers, businesses, and even governments. The results showed that PROMETHEE and GAIA can be implemented as an effective method in wellness tourism destinations evaluation.

The supplier selection process is considered one of the most relevant decisions in supply chain management due to its effect on the product quality and on buyer performance. Supplier selection is often unstructured, and is generally based on the lowest-price proposal. However, this type of selection involves a high risk, sometimes resulting in project delays, poor quality of acquired goods, and large financial losses. Price is undoubtedly an important criterion when choosing a supplier; however, other equally important criteria must be considered. Therefore, supplier selection should be formulated as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. This study uses the PROMETHEE-GAIA (Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment of Evaluations—Geometrical Analysis for Interactive Assistance) method to classify and select suppliers in an agrifood company. One of the advantages of this method is that it allows decision-makers to set their preferences considering all the relevant criteria simultaneously, and their relative importance. The case study demonstrates that PROMETHEE constitutes a flexible MCDM tool for supplier evaluation and selection, rank the different alternatives, and provide valuable insights. The results show that the supplier selection process has a strong point related to the existence of two groups of suppliers, one focused on economic criteria and other related to the innovative capacity. However, a flaw emerges, as little relevance is associated to the environmental criterion.

This paper analyzes from the perspective of Service‐Dominant Logic how value is generated through supply chain integration. The inclusion of the Service‐Dominant Logic together with the Transaction Costs Economy and the Resource Based View allows exploring ways of explaining the generation of value that have been seldom studied. In particular, the role of specific resources, governance form, and information sharing are analyzed in the Spanish mining and manufacture of nonmetallic mineral products industry. The hypotheses generated are tested with structural equation modeling. The sample size was 276 cases. The findings support the importance of governance form and relation‐specific resources as operant resources, as well as the importance of the latter in amplifying the governance form's effect. Five operant resources are identified: information sharing, governance form, relation‐specific resources, trust, and relational commitment. These resources outline three ways of value generation.