Rethinking tourism transformation for the Sustainable Development Goals through Buen Vivir

Recent crises like COVID-19 and the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings on climate change have made it clear that approaches promoting universal economic growth-oriented goals for social and environmental wellbeing are outdated. Indeed neoliberal, universalistic and Western-centric visions for tourism perpetuate exploitative models that disregard peoples, places, and the natural environment. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promote ‘transformation’; however, to achieve transformative change, it is imperative that they support more holistic visions for sustainable futures. In the aim of transformation, we propose using a Buen Vivir framework as a guide for tourism that moves away from Western universalising forms of knowledge production, towards decolonising perspectives of transformative change advocated by the SDGs. Under Buen Vivir, tourism may be considered an alternative economic activity to the neoliberal growth economy, generating benefits to host communities and their environments, as well as tourists to increase the wellbeing for all. Rethinking the approach to sustainability guided by Buen Vivir, can underpin the shift in mindsets necessary for supporting more holistic visions of wellbeing for a genuine approach towards more holistic applications of SDGs.