Tanja Mihalic

• PhD
• Professor at University of Ljubljana

Despite the apparent importance of destinations’ environmental resources, there appears to be little theoretical and applied research explicitly focusing on destination environmental supply. This research attempts to address this gap in the literature. First, it reviews and evaluates the body of research in tourism environmental resources and propo...

Although research to date has addressed various elements of destination competitiveness there has been little attempt to systematically and comprehensively study the environmental competitiveness from the managerial perspective. Since the Calgary tourism competitiveness model brought a systematic approach to tourism competitiveness research, this p...

Being of a different nature than sustainability pillars, political sustainability (Mihalic et al., 2012) is a requirement for sustainable tourism development (Edgell, DelMastro Allen, Smith & Swanson, 2008; UNWTO, 2004). This requirement refers to the informed participation and collaboration of all relevant stakeholders, critical mass, consensus an...

In recent decades, sustainable tourism has emerged as a central paradigm, attracting growing scholarly interest. External factors, such as the SDGs, climate change agendas, smart and digitalized tourism, cyber and astronaut travel, pandemics, and shifting trends in economic competitiveness, mass tourism, and overtourism, are shaping the 21st-centur...

This short communication presents “Tourism Sustainomics”,” an adaptation of the scientific concept of Sustainomics, which was originally presented at the World Development Summit in Rio and is specifically tailored to the field of tourism. As an emerging meta-science, Tourism Sustainomics integrates the dimensions of sustainability, stakeholder wel...

The relevance of the research topic lies in the fact that today innovation is necessary in many areas, including tourism. The developing tourism industry needs to find new approaches to increase its competitiveness. The ability to interest tourists in their activities is a guarantee of stable income and business development, which is also facilitat...

This poster on Universal Sustainability suggests embracing the 21st-century phenomenon of astronaut tourism and redefining tourism sustainability within the realm of space and time. It advocates for establishing sustainable tourism concepts and practices that extend from the global scale of Planet Earth to the entire Universe. The poster proposes a...

Embracing 21st-century metaversal travel solutions requires redefining tourism sustainability within the realm of space and time. It involves establishing sustainable tourism concepts and practices that extend from the global scale of Planet Earth physical realm to the virtual realities of the Metaverse. To shoulder the responsibility for 21st-cent...

Sustainability paradigm has become the dominant paradigm as we see tourism development. In its still-evolving form, it calls for future values and human-centred development that focuses on progress and well-being and on the quality of life of people and the environment. This book section starts with the state of the art discussion on what is qualit...

OpenAI. (2023, June 5). Conversation with ChatGPT on sustainable tourism paradigms [Chat transcript]. Retrieved from https://chat.openai.com/ OpenAI. (2023, June 14). Conversation with ChatGPT on sustainable tourism paradigms [Chat transcript]. Retrieved from https://chat.openai.com/

World Heritage (WH) status is anticipated to promote sustainable development by protecting the destination’s outstanding natural and cultural resources, generating economic advantages, attracting visitors, and improving the quality of life for its residents. Putting the economic advantages and values first has a critical effect on the Outstanding U...

This paper reviews resident tourism attitude research through the lens of the individual- and community-level perceived impacts of and responses to tourism. It explores how perceived impacts of tourism and responses to tourism development have been conceptualised and measured in the existing resident attitudes models published between 1990 and 2020...

This paper PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM PARADIGM addresses four research areas: the evolution and existence of sustainable tourism paradigm and its milestones in time, the multidisciplinary of sustainable tourism research and practice and the main influential bridges among disciplines, the possible rival and complementary paradigm...

This conference paper discusses the existence and evolution of the sustainable tourism paradigm and how the challenging nexus based on asymmetries between economic and ecological capacities and motives constantly prevents it from pursuing a successful paradigm for achieving sustainable tourism development. Since sustainability is a domain of differ...

Web link to Data Files, WoS search strings and research working plan (structure) - from Tourism sustainability paradigm research, part of research group on Sustainable competitiveness, ARS P5-0117

from the INTRODUCTION Ever more inhabitants of our green-blue earth are travelling and participating in a new tourism movement that is changing places, lives, and our future. As they travel, they change the ecological1 and economic environment of tourist destinations. They bring economic benefits, but also consume and destroy communities, cultures...

The paper Quo Vadis Tourism explores two research questions: How sustainable was tourism before the COVID-19 pandemic? How sustainable will tourism be in a post-COVID-19 pandemic? The unsustainability of overtourism before the COVID -19 pandemic and undertourism during the pandemic are discussed. The issues are addressed through the narrower (old)...

The paper is about the research plan for SDG No 4 on the life long learning and digitalisation in tourism.

This paper presents a road to recovery in the post COVID -19 world in Slovenia and discusses how sustainable (green) Slovenian tourism will be in the post COVID -19 world. The post COVID -19 period is defined as a new normal where countries have reopened to international tourist arrivals but still monitor the situation and may have different travel...

Purpose This paper aims to present a model to survey if effective destination management can manage (unsustainable) overtourism from the perspective of residents’ quality of life (QOL). Design/methodology/approach A constructivist approach, based on factors taken from conceptual overtourism model (Mihalic, 2020), was used to propose an overtourism...

Rapid tourism growth may negatively affect the sustainability of the destination and disrupt the life of local residents. This paper explores the direct and indirect connections among tourism impact factors in the area of sustainability. Exploratory factor analysis is conducted in order to assess the underlying dimension of residents' satisfaction...

Sustainable tourism as a concept, and responsible tourism as its successful implementation, represent two major challenges for researchers in different academic fields and for tourism stakeholders in destinations responsible for sustainable tourism planning, policies, actions, and outcomes. This paper provides a bibliometric inventory of research p...

The aim of the paper is to identify the main factors that affect tourism development of Ohrid (North Macedonia) from the three-pillar sustainability dimension (socio-cultural, environmental and economic). Based on 630 questionnaires... Keywords: sustainability, tourism development, locals, UNESCO

The study analyses and discusses differences of residents’ perceptions of Ohrid (North Macedonia) when investigating personal attributes like age, category of employment and tourism dependence, in two directions: (1) Socio-cultural, natural and economic sustainability dimensions of tourism; and (2) Benefits that world heritage status brings, as pre...

This keynote addresses the old and new in tourism schools of thought and paradigms and suggests a sustainable tourism paradigm shift.

This paper conceptualises a new tourism phenomenon: overtourism. Conceptualisation is based on relevant tourism knowledge on sustainability and related responsibility. The proposed model, presented in concise pictorial form... This paper can be found open access on: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160738320301699 Tanja Mihali...

Rapid tourism growth may negatively affect the sustainability of the destination and disrupt the life of local residents. This paper explores the direct and indirect connections among tourism impact factors in the area of sustainability. Exploratory factor analysis is conducted in order to assess the underlying dimension of residents' satisfaction...

The response of tourism businesses vis-à-vis the economic ramifications of SARS-CoV-2 Opening intellectual and real avenues for innovations Since many tourism and leisure activities can contribute significantly to the spread of SARS-CoV-2, it is not surprising that corresponding business activities have to endure a comprehensive and long lockdown....

Tourism explores new frontiers by traveling around unknown geographical and technological territories that bring new tourism opportunities and hazards to satisfy visitors’ needs and sustainability and responsibility in destinations. This study introduces a composite model for measuring travel motivation and the impact of social media on travel beha...

(Immediate) future of tourism in the wake of relaxing SARS-CoV-2 shutdowns Small steps to a temporary new “normal” Many countries are now beginning to implement the first relaxations in the SARS-CoV2 related shutdown. Even if tourism service providers are, due to their nature (mobility and human proximity), among the last to benefit from such relax...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe the most recent (or emerging) trends likely to have a major impact in shaping the future of tourism in Europe. Design/methodology/approach The methodology of this paper involved in-depth literature review of European Union policies, initiatives and programs. Also, semi-structured interv...

This study provides an overview of the current state of affairs in European tourism, considering the latest developments, identifying future challenges and emerging opportunities. It draws a number of conclusions and makes recommendations at an EU policy level that will support the sustainable development of the sector. RESEARCH FOR TRAN COMMITTEE

For English translation scroll down the Slovene text./ POVZETEK: Namen članka je primerjalno analizirati obseg slovenskega turizma z vidika ekonomske trajnosti in prispevati k ekonomskemu in družbenemu soglasju, kolikšen obseg turizma Slovenija potrebuje in ga je pripravljena podpreti. Glavna teza je, da je slovenski turizem v fazi netrajnostnega...

Tourists go home-English translation from Val 202 Blog There are many challenges facing world, European and Slovenian tourism, says prof. Tanja Mihalič, tourism expert and professor at the School of Economics and Business at the University of Ljubljana. She expects, tourism stakeholders, including the European Commission, will have to react to new...

The aim of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of the scale of Slovenian tourism in terms of economic sustainability and to contribute to an economic and social consensus on the scale of tourism Slovenia needs and is willing to support. The main thesis is that Slovenian tourism is in a phase of unsustainable underturism, as it lags far...

Title: Tourism size matters – three stage sustainability – unsustainability metric for tourism destinations Sustainable tourism is becoming important economic activity of many country destinations; and many governments and destinations count on expected sustainable growth of tourism in the future. In a framework of existing sustainable tourism dev...

Green Tourism and Sustainability Research in Slovenia: Interview with Tanja Mihalič Sometimes the devil really is in the detail. Take the terms “sustainability” and “sustainable tourism”, for example. They just don’t sell well among tourism stakeholders, especially the private sector. Change it to “green tourism”, for instance, and you get a conver...

Introduction This note considers tourism and its march towards an unsustainable and irresponsible reality. The thinking outlined is fully based on the established theoretical and policy-relevant understanding of sustainability, its pillars and implementation triggers. Sustainable tourism that is responsibly implemented contributes to the community...

Abstract The purpose is to study the impacts of tourism through overtourism on the perceived quality of life of the destination's residents. The research approach is the sustainable and responsible tourism paradigm, which has been specifically extended with the unsustainable and irresponsible impacts and implications. Data is collected by surveyi...

Increasing worldwide evidence on disruptive unsustainable impacts, caused by growing overtourism, is shaking tourism research agendas and destination management styles. Monitoring the risks of overtourism is becoming a relevant issue for every destination. This paper combines the existing sustainability–responsibility tourism framework from academi...

Sustainable tourism is becoming important contributor to GDP of many countries; and many governments and destinations count on expected growth of tourism in the future. In a framework of existing sustainable tourism development paradigm, tourism development seemed the right GDP opportunity and a positive developmental opportunity. However, after de...

Prof. Tanja Mihalic Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana Abstract Sustainable tourism is becoming important contributor to GDP of many countries; and many governments and destinations count on expected growth of tourism in the future. In a framework of existing sustainable tourism development paradigm, tourism development seemed the righ...

Paper in national tourism journal Tour!sm (STO, Slovenian Tourism Organisation, December 2017) on overtourism and antitourism and how it can happen to any destination. The benefits and damage to tourism sustainability pillars are key determinants to create overtourism or antitourism destinations. Destination's ethics, values, stakeholders and visit...

TTRA 2019 conference, Bournemouth

On the one hand, the keynote will address the necessary pillars of sustainability and how responsible implementation of sustainable tourism development strategies and triggers should contribute to the local community wellbeing and welfare. On the other hand, it will present the current evidences on the failure of sustainability implementation in a...

Abstract This paper presents William (Bill) Craig Gartner and his contribution to tourism knowledge. Bill is one of the top tourism academics of modern times and rightly proud of his academic tourism work. And Bill is not just an academic. Some things exist above his academic mission and will never ‘’change’’ (W. Gartner, 2011). During autumn ever...

This poster presents ongoing research (preliminary results) on TEFI educational and tourism values. It measures importance - performance gaps as defined from the side of tourism higher education and from the side of tourism industry.

After a dacades of discussion on sustainable and/or responsible tourism development, tourism researchers are challenged by a new tourism phenomen. What is anti-tourism? How does it relate to the current academic sustainability tourism discourse? Many tourism researchers agree that sustainable tourism development concept is widely accepted, yet co...

Sustainable tourism growth and development remains the prevailing matter of interest in contemporary tourism destination development challenges. It also became the main paradigm in planning, monitoring and managing tourism development. However, many destinations failed to properly address and manage their sustainability in times of rapid tourism gr...

Abstract In 2017 activists in several venues (Barcelona, Venice, Palma de Mallorca, Amsterdam, Bhutan, Dubrovnik, to name a few) launched local campaigns against tourists and tourism (Clancy, 2017). We have seen anti-tourism demonstrations in San Sebastián and crackdowns in Rome and Dubrovnik ‘’… as locals went frustration at city-breakers and crui...

Predictions about fastest growing tourism markets are popular and do many good for the image and recognition of tourism sector, as they recognise the economic importance of the sector in a positive light of, very often economic, growth. Nevertheless, economics and management perspective on tourism has moved away from physical flows and total spendi...

This paper aims to survey the seasonality of Slovenian Coast from two different perspectives, namely: (i) major source markets (domestic, main foreign markets); and (ii) accommodation categories (hotels, camps, other). It applies a decomposition of the Gini index method. The results reveal the total Slovene coastal tourism concentration is relative...

dr. Tanja Mihalič, Vice Dean, Full Professor, Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana (FELU) and programme chair of the European Master in Tourism Management (EMTM) programme Question: The two-year joint European Master in Tourism Management (EMTM) programme was chosen by the European Commission as a success story. Placed at the 9th place am...

Interview on Strategy for sustainable tourism growth. Interview is in Slovene language only.

The tourism development debate includes many studies on how residents perceive positive or negative tourism impacts, based on sustainability, as understood by a three-pillar concept. However, so far studies were very limited in addressing certain requirements for sustainable tourism, such as informed stakeholders' participation and cooperation, whi...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide details of the communist and socialist past to inform the debate on redesigning tourism in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries as impacted by the transition and accelerated by European Union (EU) membership. Design/methodology/approach The issues from two sides are addressed: academic and pr...

Seasonality has long been recognised as a problem for tourism destinations, especially those over characterised by sun and beach tourism. More recent studies on seasonality in such destinations have proposed numerous counter-seasonal strategies; however, research gaps still exist. Firstly, although Slovenian tourism has a strong seasonal character,...

As information technology progresses, Internet-enabled hotel distribution channels are replacing the traditional ones. Among such intermediaries, Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) play a crucial role in the hotel distribution. The recent economic crisis, coupled with the rise of social media has generated the interesting phenomenon of Daily Deals (DDs)...

In the context of sustainable tourism development, there are many studies about the exchange process between residents and tourism, yet this issue is practically unexplored with respect to the political environment of tourism. Therefore, this paper introduces and posits that the political environment is a necessary enabler for implementing sustaina...

This paper contributes to the comparative tourism sustainability debate in the context of mountain tourism destinations. It is based on a published three-dimensional Mountain Destination Innovation Model (MDIM) which claims that tourism development depends on a destination's innovation levels, and is subject to different conditions in a variety of...

Introduction One of the current challenges for tourism research is to reflect on the communist and socialist heritage in the context of change and Europeisation. This issues have been addressed in the broader research on the opportunities of European Union membership through its recent expansion towards the area of ex socialist and communist countr...

Empirical research focusing on the relationship between destination branding and destination competitiveness has so far been lacking. Even though destination brand is partially incorporated into the two most prominent theoretical models of destination competitiveness, there is still a need for understanding the role that destination branding plays...

In the context of sustainable tourism development, there are many studies about the exchange process between residents and tourism, yet this issue is practically unexplored with respect to the political environment of tourism. Therefore, this paper introduces and posits that the political environment is a necessary enabler for implementing sustaina...

This paper examines two different aspects of tourism development in the context of mountain tourism destinations. First, destinations are becoming increasingly aware that their development is shaped by their innovation ability. Second, destinations differ in their technological, socio-cultural, natural, political and legal environments, and these d...

Debates about competitiveness and productivity are practically unexplored with respect to tourism. This article posits a productivity-related measure—total tourism contribution to GDP per employee in tourism—in order to examine destination competiveness. Comprehensive results based on a destination competitiveness model are obtained by analyzing to...

Purpose – This paper aims to deal with the myths of tourism in regard to the tourism available data and their mythical interpretation in relation to top tourism countries, tourism economic contribution and competitiveness and to argue that there is yet no such thing as globalisation of tourism demand. For many decades, tourism researchers have trie...

This paper analyses the importance and performance of values in tourism higher education and industy through the eyes of the MSc students of the European Master in Tourism Management (EMTM). The EMTM students have been exposed to the values-based education framework proposed by the Tourism Educational Future Initiatives (TEFI) at an experimental le...

A modified nine-quadrant importance–performance analysis is employed to assess the importance which Slovenian and Serbian tourism industry stakeholders attach to 48 nominated strategic activities to promote business and destination competitiveness. An important finding is that respondents in each country allocated the bulk of activities to the ‘kee...

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TOURISM AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT – CAPITAL COEFFICIENT ANALYSIS Prof. Mihalič, Tanja Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Kardeljeva pl 17, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia; e-mail: tanja.mihalic@ef.uni-lj.si Purpose The purpose of this paper is to apply capital-output analysis in order to study tourism country competitive...

The purpose of the article is to survey the role of information and communication technology (ICT) for hotel firm’s competitiveness. Based on competitive advantage factor (CAF) and resource theory, this article empirically tests ICT as one of several possible competitiveness factors. The research is focused on analyse of ICT competitiveness positio...

Tourism has been often portrayed as a best practice for sustainable development, but tourism industry remains alarmingly un-sustainable, or, un-responsible. It is becoming increasingly evident that assumptions about the sustainable tourism development must be re-examined in the light of advanced knowledge and experience, and reformulated accordingl...

Purpose: Implementation of sustainable tourism development, among others, requires informed participation of all relevant stakeholders at the destination (Mihalič, 2014; Mihalič et al., 2014; Mundt, 2011; UNWTO, 2004). Hence, it is of big importance to inform and involve local residents in tourism development to “raise the stakes” for its support a...

In pursuit of a more just international tourism: the concept of trading tourism rights Tanja Mihalic and David Fennell Abstract Research on sustainable tourism mainly focuses on incoming tourism, and destination perspectives and impacts, and less on the focus of this paper – outgoing tourism. In this context, direct and personal access to tourism...

Abstract Despite several decades of academic and practical debate on tourism sustainability, its application in practice remains difficult. The dominant tourism discourse on sustainability (theory, seen as a concept) and responsibility (practice, understood as appropriate action) calls for a solid understanding of the process of how a responsible...

1 INTRODUCTION Over the last six decades tourism has expanded to become one of the largest economic sectors in the world. Receipts from international tourism, excluding international fares, rose dramatically from US$ 2 billion in 1950 to reach US$ 475 billion by 2010 (UNWTO, 2011a, 2011e). If we also take domestic tourism into consideration, the to...

Despite several decades of academic and practical debate on tourism sustainability, its application in practice remains difficult. The dominant tourism discourse on sustainability (theory, seen as a concept) and responsibility (practice, understood as appropriate action) calls for a solid understanding of the process of how a responsible destinatio...

Mountain destinations are increasingly seeking their development opportunities in tourism. In order to keep pace with rapidly changing situations, it is necessary to determine the environments that contribute to sustainable tourism development. The purpose of this paper is to determine the elements and factors of destination environments that are i...

Strategic flexibility provides an approach for tourism destinations to respond more readily to turbulent environments. It is a management method that can assist tourism suppliers to meet the challenges of achieving competitive advantage. The paper also explores the importance that is accorded to the facilitators or drivers of strategic flexibility...

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Destination competitiveness has attracted much attention from researchers over the past two decades. The Integrated Destination Competitiveness Model has been used to explore destination competitiveness in many contexts including Australia, Korea, Slovenia, and Serbia. Given its popularity with tourism researchers and its application to destination...

From the article: If there were one word, among all the words in the English language, to describe Pauline Joy Sheldon, it would be serendipitous. Indeed, Pauline, herself, acknowledges this. In her own account of her life in Larry Dwyer’s (2011) book on tourism economists, she described her life with the title A Serendipitous Journey: From Mathema...

INTRODUCTION Tourism product and experience encompasses a multidimensional concept that includes not only purposely produced tourism services, but also environmental resources, such as ''not for tourism produced'' climate, traditions, friendliness of locals or traditional architecture. Research has shown that tourists have become increasingly dema...

The paper has two main objectives. First to discuss how IPA was employed to assess the importance of different strategies to underpin tourism development in Serbia. The second is to examine the implications of the findings for both destination managers and private tourism operators in Serbia that can assist them to develop a focused action agenda t...