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This chapter aims to discuss the key issues of green entrepreneurship in tourism (GEiT), paying special attention to the environmental performance of green entrepreneurs and its relationship with strategy, brand reputation and long-term business growth.

Literature review is conducted on conceptual issues and several hotels first-hand experiences that were categorised to provide readers with business-world examples.

This chapter highlights how small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs are the agents who started green innovation initiatives and how larger corporations tested and validated them. A myriad of small green interventions awaits to be undercovered and implemented. Most of them can bring financial improvements to the entrepreneurs as the required initial investments are not necessarily high.

This chapter is explorative in nature, based on a literature review and interviews-based analysis of consolidated green initiatives, most of them being successful ones.

The forces driving green initiatives are identified and classified. Most important categories of green entrepreneurs are described and emphasis was placed on the managerial and marketing benefits linked to green initiatives and action plans.

This chapter presents models and concepts in an integrated way, facilitating a useful knowledge for prospective entrepreneurs wishing to acquire a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges related to eco-friendly business.

Sustainable tourism will be an appropriate strategy to be promoted during the post COVID-19 pandemic, as this is a turning point for the tourism industry to grab the unique chance to have a true reset by focussing on achieving long-term sustainability and a shift from a ‘me to we’ economy. To support sustainable tourism and foster future success in the tourism industry, the process of integrating green knowledge and knowledge management can begin with entrepreneurial education in higher education institutions (HEIs). However, empirical research on university students' green entrepreneurial intention in sustainable tourism has not been exhaustively studied. Additionally, there is a need to further explore knowledge management process and entrepreneurial learning in HEIs. Hence, the aim of this study is to analyze knowledge management as a technique to explore the green entrepreneurial intention of students in HEIs in sustaining Malaysia's tourism post COVID-19 pandemic. Exploratory research with quantitative analysis was conducted through partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings reveal that there is a positive and significant relationship between green entrepreneurial knowledge and green entrepreneurial intention in sustainable tourism among university business students. Additionally, knowledge revision and conceptual change positively and significantly influence green entrepreneurial knowledge and green entrepreneurial intention in sustainable tourism. However, knowledge application has no impact on green entrepreneurial knowledge and green entrepreneurial intention. The results of this study also reveal that green entrepreneurial knowledge does not have a mediation effect on green entrepreneurial intention. The present work contributes by going beyond the study of entrepreneurial intention, as the research focusses on interconnection among these three major areas: knowledge management, sustainable tourism, and entrepreneurship education post COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, the combination of these diverse aspects in this study provides insights to educators and policy makers to investigate the importance of green entrepreneurial knowledge and benefits of knowledge management that can be integrated into entrepreneurship education for current and future sustainable tourism development.

Applying the practices of ecotourism to an urban environment is a relatively new concept but a concept that merits development in multiple cities. The concept of urban green tourism (urban ecotourism), as pioneered by Toronto’s Green Tourism Association, is a working example that demonstrates how a city can promote itself, individual businesses and attractions to provide a unique tourism experience and generate demand for sustainability. This paper seeks to outline how urban green tourism can be an effective approach to addressing the issues of tourism in cities – growth, waste, etc., and demonstrates how sustainable tourism options can capitalize on the existing features of a city. The association promotes local businesses, organizations, natural and cultural features through its green map, green guidebook and Website to educate travellers and industry toward greener practices.

Tourism is a big and complex system which incorporates a large number of public and private sectors that offer a wide range of products and services for different segments of tourists. Therefore, tourism development has become important for many organizations from different industries in the region. While tourism affords significant positive effects to tourism destination, it also adds large environmental footprint; to be more sustainable, the tourism industry needs to apply specific strategies to make it more environmentally friendly. Thus, sustainable tourism development becomes a paradigm shift to include a green orientation as a way to achieve these goals.

This chapter is focused on a green orientation in tourism in the Western Balkan countries. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the importance of a green orientation in tourism as an important way to achieve sustainable tourism development. The major method of research was secondary data collection. Key sources of information included literature concerning sustainable tourism and the green economy, green strategies in tourism, as demonstrated in the work of UNWTO, UNEP and WTTC. Data gathered from these organization’s web pages were examined.

The Western Balkan countries accepted and applied the idea of sustainable tourism development in practice, but they remain insufficient in application when it comes to green orientation in tourism. All countries in this region should adopt more precise green strategies for future tourism development to provide long-term benefits for local population, environment and economy in tourism destination.

This research aims to demonstrate how the circular economy is employed to drive the sustainability of the tourism industry in Krabi, Thailand, through the concept of mindful consumption and service-dominant logic (hereafter S-D logic).

A seven-year longitudinal study (2013–2020) was conducted through four studies from different perspectives, including macro, meso and micro levels of development in Krabi province.

Krabi tourism stakeholders have collaborated to co-create green culture and behavior whereby the value network among stakeholders plays an important role in driving the circular economy in practice.

This study provides an understanding of how the circular economy society has been co-created. However, further research should be conducted in other tourism cities by focusing on the key success factors that drive the circular economy.

The longitudinal study with multi-perspective micro, macro and meso levels of development in this study has shed the light on how the circular economy (CE) policy can be turned into practice.

The gradual expansion of the tourism sector is raising concerns about whether tourism-based economies are conducive to supporting green growth. Hence, the current study aims to analyze the direct impact of tourism motives on green growth along with the indirect impact of tourism-based economic expansion while controlling for country risk and renewable energy.

An unbalanced panel data for a sample of 21 countries comprising OECD and non-OECD economies are employed for the analysis.

Regression results reveal that leisure tourism (LT) significantly and positively influences CO₂ intensity compared to business tourism (BT). Propensity score matching results show that the most traveled tourist destinations contribute more to CO₂ intensity than those less traveled. Mediation analysis by employing Baron and Kenny’s three-step regression, Sobel’s test and Monte Carlo test shows that tourism-based economic expansion significantly mediates between the nexus of LT and CO₂ intensity.

Results of the study provide useful practical implications for sustainable economy and green growth. It recommends to mitigate the challenges of LT, reducing the negative impact and to harness the potential of BT, enhancing the positive influence, through various policies and practices.

This study is the first to examine the impact of LT and BT on green growth, to explore the role of destination popularity and the mediating role of tourism-based economic expansion in this relationship.

The environmental sensitivity of consumers has played an important role in shaping the tourism industry. Although the green trend is an ongoing concern within the tourism industry, empirical research examining the link between green motivation and tourist satisfaction has been lacking in the tourism literature. The study bridges this research gap by examining the relationship between green pull motives and overall tourist satisfaction using empirical data from 28 Member States of the European Union and Turkey, North Macedonia, Iceland, Montenegro and Moldova. Moreover, the framework incorporates both macro- and micro-level analyses, thus offering an unbiased approach compared to analyses based on a single-level perspective. The purpose of this paper is also to compare the relationship between green pull motives and tourist satisfaction across different generational cohorts, thus offering new insights into tourist satisfaction across life-courses.

Through an examination of 7,450 tourists from 28 Member States of the European Union and Turkey, North Macedonia, Iceland, Montenegro and Moldova derived from the Flash Eurobarometer survey called “Preferences of Europeans towards tourism,” the authors used a Tobit model to test the proposed framework.

The obtained findings demonstrate that the green pull motives at the macro level are negatively associated with overall tourist satisfaction. In contrast, the green pull motives at the micro level are positively related to overall tourist satisfaction. In addition, the results show that the relationship between green pull motives and overall tourist satisfaction diverges between different generational cohorts.

These results have wide implications for tourism marketers across different European countries, suggesting that adequately managing attributes associated with green motives at both the macro and micro levels, as well as across life-course, considerably contributes to overall tourist satisfaction.

The novel findings increase understanding of the impact of green trends within the tourism sector by providing unbiased analysis of the relationship between green pull motives and overall tourist satisfaction that involves both a multilevel approach and generational cohort comparisons across life-course.

The research analyzes the influence of three environmental triggers, i.e. awareness, concern and knowledge on environmental attachment and green motivation that affect tourists' pro-environmental behavior in the Pakistan’s tourism industry. Furthermore, this study has analyzed the moderating role of moral obligation concerning environmental attachment and green motivation on tourists' pro-environmental behavior.

Data were gathered via a structured questionnaire by 237 local (domestic) tourists of Pakistan. Furthermore, the data were examined by employing SmartPLS.

Findings demonstrate that all three environmental triggers have a positive and significant relationship with environmental attachment and green motivation. Accordingly, environmental attachment and green motivation promote tourists' pro-environmental behavior. Furthermore, the moderating role of moral obligations has also been incorporated in the study. The finding reveals a strong and positive relationship among environmental attachment and tourists' pro-environmental behaviors during high moral obligations. In contrast, moral obligations do not moderate association between green motivation and tourists' pro-environmental behavior. Therefore, competent authorities should facilitate tourists to adopt environmentally friendly practices; which will ultimately promote pro-environmental behavior.

This study provides useful insights regarding the role of tourism in fostering environmental attachment and green motivation that sequentially influence tourist pro-environmental behavior. Secondly, this research has employed moral obligations as a moderator to identify the changes in tourists’ pro-environmental behavior based on individuals' ethical considerations. Hence, the study provides an in-depth insight into tourists' behavior. Lastly, the present research offers effective strategies for the tourism sector and other competent authorities to increase green activities that can embed the importance of the environment among individuals.

The growth in the ecotourism industry has increased emphasis on sustainable practices. Despite the fact that ample research has been conducted on sustainable ecotourism practices, many ecotourism destinations fail to become sustainable. The growth of the ecotourism industry and the global population has called for greener practices to be incorporated in developing ecotourism destinations. Waterwheel, located in the Limpopo province of South Africa, is faced with this green development challenge and serves as a case study (located at the end of the chapter) for this chapter.

This chapter gives a brief overview of the green principles associated with developing ecotourism destinations. Green ecotourism destination planning is explained within the context of the tourists’ experience to highlight aspects necessary for sustainable ecotourism destination development.

Even though the green market is still in its infancy, tourists are increasingly demanding green accommodation. A green, sustainable ecotourism destination can only be developed if green principles are incorporated from the input phase. The input phase (e.g., building materials and infrastructure systems for water and energy) determines the output phase (e.g., operational materials, activities, suppliers, activities, and marketing) and, subsequently, the level of sustainability. It is therefore crucial to plan for these aspects and the level to which the destination aims to adhere to these aspects, as they are costly.

Even though research on the green economy is not a new phenomenon it has only recently trickled down to ecotourism development. This explains the lack of research currently experienced in the literature of ecotourism and a gap that should be addressed urgently. Although this chapter only briefly discusses green ecotourism development, the aspects highlighted in the chapter provides other researchers with research opportunities to pursue in an effort to bridge the gap.

In the era of new technological revolution, seeking to survive and guarantee business sustainability in their digital internationalization, enterprises choose to become environmentally oriented. The need for new green business models has become evident in recent years, and enterprises offer green services in creative and eco-friendly ways. However, does the display of a green label on hotels' websites really promote the eco-conscious tourists' online booking intention? This study aims to examine the impact of the perceived label on the online sustainable hotel booking intention of the eco-conscious tourists, using the foundations of signal theory.

This study adopted a structural equation model to integrate several constructs with a sample of 349 validated responses.

The empirical results highlight, the importance of the green label perception on the eco-conscious tourists' booking intention of online sustainable hotel and the role that green trust and green perceived risk play as a mediating variable between the perception of the exposed label and the booking intention. Indeed, when booking a sustainable hotel online, the tourists may be sensitive to the exposure of a green label. Therefore, this signal decreases the perceived risk of unsustainability and ultimately increases the trust in hotel's sustainability.

The first limitation is related to the sample employed in this study. Given that most of the participants were residents of France, the results of this study may not be generalized to the entire population. Secondly, a range of other factors can affect the eco-conscious tourists' intentions to book online a hotel with green label, such as their attitude, social media influence, tourists' satisfaction, etc. Indeed, other variables and/or signals could be adopted to study online booking intention in the pandemic era.

In light of these results, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. The findings make an important contribution to SMEs sustainability and internationalization by exploring new ties. This study considers how SMEs and specifically hotels start following green practices (e.g. adoption of an eco-label) relevant to their international environment where they operate and in response to global pressures. SMEs can survive better in the highly competitive global environment where they need to employ more green practices, however, managers should consider how green trust and green perceived risk can affect customer behavior. It also adds to the existing literature by dealing with customer perceptions about the green label of sustainable hotels and its subsequent effect on booking intention.

This study had shown the importance of the display of green label on the eco-conscious tourist's online booking intention.