Advancing Sustainable Tourism in Svalbard by Assessing and Prioritizing Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs )

Bibliographic Data

ID12307286
AuthorsJulien Lebel (0009-0009-7624-2245, Nordland Research Institute Bodø Norway, corresponding author), Anna G Sveinsdóttir (0000-0002-8721-9691, Nordland Research Institute Bodø Norway), Bjørn P Kaltenborn (0000-0003-3735-4796, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research Trondheim Norway), Grete K Hovelsrud (0000-0001-6549-8194, Nordland Research Institute Bodø Norway)
Year2025
Volume34
Issue1
Pages873-903
Publication date2025-10-08
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSustainable Development (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0968-0802 • E-ISSN: 1099-1719
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/sd.70282
OpenAlexW4414952535
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited73

Tourism is a significant sector on the Svalbard archipelago. The increase in visitors and tourism activities has reshaped the local community of Longyearbyen, brought new economic opportunities, and put greater pressure on the local environment. Tourism operators address ways to integrate the concept of sustainability in their products, management, and communications, as well as focus on selected sustainable development goals (SDGs). Yet, many actors struggle to prioritize work with the SDGs. Through a case study of the tourism sector on Svalbard, this article offers a novel methodology to identify, assess, and hierarchize the most relevant SDGs at the target level. Based on qualitative data, we reviewed all 169 targets and identified 42 relevant targets for tourism in Svalbard. We filled a table to assess these targets and hierarchize them, taking into consideration the context in Svalbard and information we gathered from document analyses and interviews with local stakeholders. Our findings show that tourism operators on Svalbard play a decisive role in contributing to the three pillars of sustainability (economic, social, and environmental). However, better inclusion of targets with a strong social dimension in sustainability strategies will contribute to a successful operationalization of the SDG framework. We emphasize the importance of coordinating work between the tourism industry and local and national authorities to achieve the most complex SDG targets. Moreover, we encourage the tourism operators to identify relevant but underrepresented sustainability areas in their strategies to develop their own feasible contributions, while integrating the whole SDG framework into their development models

Context (archaeology · Operationalization · Sustainability · Sustainable development · Sustainable tourism · Tourism · Work (physics · Arctic and Russian Policy Studies · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Polar Research and Ecology

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