From ‘sustainable tourism’ to ‘sustainability transitions in tourism’?

although sustainable tourism research is a rich and diverse field, it still suffers from a few important shortcomings.Negligible attention has been given to various possible pathways to sustainable tourism (as opposed to sustainable tourism as a 'goalpost') and there is an insufficient understanding of how the interconnections and interdependencies within tourism as a complex system shape the pursuit of sustainability.What is therefore needed is a sharper focus on the actual processes that must unfold for a transition to sustainable tourism to take place, and a better conceptualisation of the tourism industry as a multi-actor and multi-dimensional socio-technical system.We argue here that the sustainability transitions agenda, which has developed over the last two decades at the interface of innovation studies, evolutionary economics, studies of technology and science, and various other fields, offers a promising way forward for the desired pathway towards sustainable tourism to be comprehensively understood and more effectively followed.in order to set the scene for the individual contributions to this collection, we elaborate on this argument by highlighting the key strengths of the sustainability transitions agenda and identifying their potential to help tourism scholars move the work on sustainable tourism in new, unprecedented, and imperative directions.our overarching aim is to lay the foundations for bridging the gap between (sustainable) tourism research and the sustainability transitions literature to move this combined agenda forward. Sustainability transitions -a compass for tourism's guiding fiction?the CoP 28 UN Climate Conference recognised that 'transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner so as to achieve net zero by 2050' is paramount in the decades ahead while acknowledging the myriad 'circumstances, pathways and approaches' to achieve this transition (United Nations