Tourism Degrowth: Strategy Toward a Green and Low-Carbon Industry

Abstract

Despite decades of implementing green growth initiatives in tourism development, environmental degradation and social inequality continue to intensify across global destinations. Increasing skepticism regarding the capacity of green growth strategies to deliver net positive social and environmental outcomes has led to growing support for tourism degrowth, particularly within selected industry sectors. This paper explores the concept of degrowth, presenting a clear vision for its application in tourism. It identifies key strategies for achieving tourism degrowth and examines the institutional, political, economic, and cultural challenges associated with its implementation. It is argued that a diverse range of wellbeing outcomes may potentially result from tourism degrowth. Additionally, the paper highlights areas for further research to address both practical and theoretical implications of tourism degrowth. The conclusion emphasizes that while some level of downsizing is essential, significant obstacles must be overcome to ensure that resident wellbeing is maintained or enhanced through tourism development in the long term.

Received: 10 December 2025 | Revised: 2 February 2026 | Accepted: 28 March 2026

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares that he has no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study

Author Contribution Statement

Larry Dwyer: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration.