Sustainable tourism development towards spatial justice: Evidence from Masłomęcz, Poland

Abstract

Since 1980s tourism related academia, institutions and organizations (including United Nations), and business practice have focused on the relationship between tourism and sustainable development. Environmental, social, and cultural contexts of sustainable tourism development has been widely discussed by researchers, politicians, and practitioners. Concepts related to sustainable tourism development like community-based tourism, responsible-sustainable tourism, ecotourism, cultural tourism, and many others, have been introduced and investigated. Nowadays, the significance of geographical contexts of tourism research, policy, and business practice increases. Thus, the goal of this research is to discuss the phenomena of sustainable tourism development in the geographical context. The locality becomes the main consideration of this enquiry, and the spatial justice is introduced as the main goal of sustainable tourism development. The main research method applied in this enquiry is a case study. To address investigated relation between sustainable tourism development and spatial justice, the results from the case study research on thematic Goth Village in Masłomęcz (East-South Poland) were exploited. This case study is one of 33 actions investigated under the EU Horizon 2020 research project ‘Resituating the local in cohesion and territorial development’ (RELOCAL).