Tourism Planning & Development

Slow tourism is an emerging tourism trend and is viewed as a form of sustainable tourism, or a more responsible form of tourism (Le Busque, Mingoia, & Litchfield, 2021; Serdane, Maccarrone-Eaglen, & Sharifi, 2020). Tourism academics and practitioners are interested in understanding and interpreting it (Husemann & Eckhardt, 2019; Oh, Assaf, & Baloglu, 2016; Manthiou, Klaus, & Luong, 2022). The decelerated consumption philosophy advocates the opposite of our rushed society, in which individuals have to run to keep up, have less time to reflect, and end up in a “temporal ghetto”. In addition, resource depletion, climatic change, and the overuse of transportation all threaten society’s welfare; consequently, decelerated consumption seems to be a limited response to these hazards. Customer deceleration refers to individuals’ search for opportunities to escape from a speedy pace of life and engage in various slow forms of consumption such as fashion, travel, food, goods etc (Husemann & Eckhardt, 2019; Pookulangara, & Shephard 2013; Dickinson & Lumsdon, 2010). The acceleration/deceleration debate in contemporary critical theory was developed by the sociologist Hartmut Rosa (2013). In the tourism context, López-González (2020) proposes the perspective of social acceleration as a foundation to link tourism criticism and ethics in tourism.

Slow tourism is not a novel concept (e.g. Dickinson & Lumsdon, 2010). Slow consumption emerged from the Italian slow food movement, contrasting the time-space pressures dominating individuals’ lifes (Harvey, 1989). The slow food movement denotes the opposite of fast living by focusing on locality, ecology, and quality of life (Serdane et al., 2020)

Slow tourism became internationalized and expanded to a broader understanding of tourism in general (e.g. Presenza, Abbate, & Micera, 2015; Pink 2008).  Specifically, slow tourism provides a way to slow down not only physically and but also mentally, and escape from the hurried lifestyle people are following (Serdane et al., 2020). Manthiou, Klaus, and Luong (2022, p. 7) define slow tourism as “a vacation during which tourists take a longer time and have a flexible plan to experience tourism offers while living in harmony with nature, local communities, their people, and their culture at the highest level of engagement”. In particular, individuals look for “oases of deceleration” within geographical, cultural and social environments which are partially or wholly unsullied by acceleration (Berger-Remy, Dubreuil, & Albertini, 2020; Osbaldiston, 2013). Thus, temporality is a significant feature of these consumption practices (Woermann & Rokka 2015; Szmigin & Carrigan, 2001). In particular, tourists’ temporal orientation will influence their attitudes, visitation intentions, and tourism product choice (Tangari & Smith, 2012; Manthiou & Kuppelwieser). The development and planning of slow tourism can provide an alternative way of reaching social and environmental goals and keeping a balance between economic development, environmental protection, and social equity (the three E’s of sustainability) (Mayer & Knox 2006; Campbell 1996). Such an endorsement would result in a win-win situation not only for tourists at a micro level (e.g. better tourism experiences) but also society and environment at a macro level (e.g. more sustainable destinations, communities). Slow tourism describes a mental, psychological as well as a behavioral process (Oh et al., 2016; Manthiou & Kuppelwieser), thus it needs to be comprehensively analyzed.

Despite the identification and the importance of the slow tourism, there has been limited exploration on its development and management, but also on the whole consumption process tourist follow, its relation to sustainability, how tourists behave when engaging in this form of tourism (Husemann & Eckhardt, 2019). Moreover, diverge views of slow tourism restrain the clarity of the concept not only for tourism suppliers but also for tourists (Oh, Assaf, & Baloglu, 2016; Clancy, 2017; Manthiou, Klaus, & Luong, 2022; Manthiou & Kuppelwieser, 2022). Temporal patterns of tourist behavior such as slow time behavior, slow time perception, and slow time orientation are important not only because of their relevance to the understanding of individual behavior and planning, but also because of their applicability to tourism development and planning decisions (Hornik, 1993). Manthiou and Kuppelwieser (2022) examine consumers’ reaction to decelerated tourism by considering the impact of pace, inherent virtue, and environmental concerns. This special issue aims at understanding, conceptualizing, and interpreting slow tourism, concentrate on its development, analyze the consumption process as well as provide important insights about the impacts of slow tourism.

Contributions The special issue will make a clear and significant contribution to slow development and planning seen as a form of a more responsible tourism consumption as well as the tourist behavior literature stream. Despite the importance of the slow tourism movement, slow tourism is still an underesearched area (e.g., Husemann, & Eckhardt, 2019; Berger-Remy, Dubreuil, & Albertini, 2020; Manthiou, Klaus, & Luong, 2022). Collectively, this special issue helps tourism scholars and practitioners not only to follow the slow tourism movement, better develop and plan it, but also shape tourism industry’s future. This call for papers identifies critical research gaps and opportunities to push the slow tourism field forward. As of today, there is to the best of our knowledge, no thorough research done to explore the tourism planning and development of slow tourism, the psychological process customers follow in slow tourism, the slow tourism experience, customers’ motivations, values, and benefits they are seeking in the slow tourism offers. This special issue will address and fill these research gaps.

List of sample topics

Conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions (qualitative or quantitative) grounded in a range of perspectives that offer insights into the central topic of this Special Issue are welcome. These topics include, but are not limited to:

• Slow tourism planning and development
• The role of sustainability in slow tourism
• Slow tourism (e.g. case studies/examples) from the Global South
• Slow tourism and climate change
• Slow tourism and wellbeing (societal, environmental)
• How tourism operators respond to the rise of the slow tourism market and be competitive, sustainable and profitable?
• Slow tourism and customer experiences
• Obstacles for slow tourism development and planning
• Evaluating slow versus fast/conventional forms of tourism
• Slow tourism value creation for customers, tourism suppliers and society as a whole.
• Slow tourism branding and identity
• Inclusive practice in slow tourism
• Beyond cognition: being-with via feelings, felt memories, and senses
• Degrowth and slow tourism
• Slow tourism and im/mobilities”
• Exploring whether slow tourism could also occur in a short time frame
• The extent to which Slow Tourism embodies Westernised concepts of environmental advocacy that may be contested with reference to indigenous approaches.
• What does an ethic of slow entail?
• Are slow tourism principles synonymous with those of regenerative tourism? What are the conceptual and practical differences?
• What does “slow” imply from the point of view of tourism labour markets, economic growth and sustainability

Expression of Interest (EOI) - Prospective authors are expected to contact the guest editor with potential topics of interest regarding the special issue. Abstracts (500 words maximum, including research objectives, methods, expected results, and research contributions) + bio should be submitted via email to Dr. Aikaterini Manthiou, ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editor; abstracts that appear to make substantial contributions and that fit the standards and scope of this special issue will be invited for full submission. Papers invited for full submission to this special issue should be submitted through the Journal Submission System; submission guidelines can be found in the journal’s Guide for Authors. Please select the “special issue” category while submitting the full paper and indicate the submission for the “special issue - Slow Tourism Development and Planning: A Sustainable Form of Tourism?” in the cover letter to facilitate the handling of reviews. Papers will be added to the compilation on a rolling basis as articles are accepted.

Deadline and Submission Details

All submissions should be made to the special issue identified on the https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rthp21 . All submitted manuscripts should not have been published, accepted for publication, or be currently under consideration elsewhere. Manuscripts should follow the Tourism Planning & Development style guidelines available on the home page at: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rthp21. All manuscripts will be evaluated primarily on the basis of adequate coverage of the research domain, originality in summarizing our understanding of what we know, and what we do not know, and the potential for advancing understanding of the slow tourism field. Other important considerations include the length-contribution ratio, and the quality of written expression. Potential contributors can contact the Special Issue Editor to discuss their ideas for a paper prior to submitting a formal proposal. Please direct any questions about the submission process to the guest editor.

Key Dates:

Expressions of Interest: September 30, 2023

Decision on Expression of interest: October 20, 2023

Deadline for invited full manuscript submission: April 1, 2024

Instructions for AuthorsSubmit an Article