Who Benefits When Tourism Turns Green? An Implementable Multilevel Governance Framework for Preventing Elite Capture and Advancing SDG 10 in Tourism and Hospitality

Environmental improvements in tourism do not determine who controls assets, influences decisions, retains income, or bears transition costs. This conceptual article examines how governance can connect green tourism transitions to Sustainable Development Goal 10 (SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities). An integrative literature review and abductive theory synthesis connect justice and sustainability, political economy and access, collective governance and capability conversion, and organizational accountability. Mechanism-oriented analysis identifies eight capture pathways and develops the Equitable Green Tourism Governance Framework (EGTG). The framework links destination institutions, community entrepreneurial ecosystems, and hospitality firms and boards through six functions: rights and recognition; representative voice and decision power; capabilities and finance; fair transactions and local value capture; accountability, assurance, and remedy; and reinvestment and adaptive learning. Twelve conditional propositions explain how these functions may convert formal commitments into realized benefits and identify constraints on their effectiveness. A governance gate, readiness-based implementation sequence, responsibility matrix, and SDG-aligned diagnostics translate the framework into testable practice. The contribution is a multilevel explanation of why environmental commitments require aligned authority, capabilities, transactions, and corrective mechanisms to support equitable outcomes. The proposed relationships and implementation instruments require context-sensitive empirical validation.