Relevance of Triple Bottom Line Reporting to Achievement of Sustainable Tourism: A Scoping Study

The tourism industry shares with local residents, governments, and community the obligation to protect and maintain the natural and cultural heritage resources of our planet, both to sustain economies and to be passed on unimpaired to future generations. The most comprehensive approach to achieving sustainable operations (i.e., to integrate economic, environmental, and social thinking into core business activities) is the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), approach. TBL is a planning and reporting mechanism and decision-making framework used to achieve sustainable development in both private and public sector organizations—an internal management tool as well as an external reporting framework. This scoping article has several aims. First, it sets out the nature of the TBL approach and its key components. Second, the article identifies the potential benefits of the TBL approach to tourism organizations. Third, it will discuss the conditions necessary for integrating TBL into organization activities. Fourth, the article will discuss some challenges to tourism organizations in establishing TBL. Finally, some issues for further research will be highlighted.