Rethinking sustainable tourism through innovation and knowledge: A conceptual framework for policy and practice

Research background: Tourism plays a central role in global economic development and cross-cultural exchange. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a growing focus on integrating sustainability, innovation, and equity into tourism practices. Traditional models have often overlooked the complex interplay of social, environmental, and economic challenges faced by destinations. This has spurred a rethinking of tourism development, driven by community empowerment, climate concerns, and technological advances. Purpose of the article: The study aims to explore how a transformative approach to tourism can be achieved by centering community participation, embracing sustainability, and incorporating innovative social practices. It focuses on the intersections of social innovation, rural-luxury travel, heritage preservation, and inclusive governance. The authors seek to construct a conceptual framework that captures emerging themes and sub-themes within sustainable tourism, offering practical insights for policymakers and industry stakeholders. Methods: An integrative review approach was applied, guided by PRISMA methodology. Following keyword extraction, topic modeling was conducted using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a widely used technique for discovering hidden topics in text data. Over 12,000 academic sources from the Scopus database were synthesized. A conceptual model was developed through inductive analysis to identify interrelationships between tourism-related themes. Findings & value added: The key findings highlight the transformative potential of strategies that align tourism practices with environmental stewardship, local empowerment, and innovative management approaches. The study underscores actionable implications such as the establishment of innovation hubs, and cross-sector partnerships, offering pathways to foster a tourism sector that not only supports global sustainable development goals, but also ensures long-term community resilience and equitable development.