Towards green cities – a systematic literature review of policy models for sustainable urban tourism development in tourism destinations

Abstract

Urban tourism is a growing phenomenon that increasingly calls for strategic alignment between tourism planning and urban policy. Research on integrative policy models for this alignment remains limited. This study aims to identify, classify, and compare urban tourism policy models discussed in the academic literature, with particular attention to their potential contribution to sustainable urban tourism planning and their contextual applicability. This study conducted a systematic literature review using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) method as a reporting and selection framework to identify and analyze 29 peer-reviewed sources from SCOPUS, Web of Science (WoS), and EBSCO, and extract 12 distinct urban tourism policy models. A consistent search criterion and data extraction across these databases addresses the risk of bias. The inclusion criteria are: an urban tourism study area and a thematic focus on urban tourism policy, planning, or governance. Rather than evaluating the implemented outcomes of these models, the review synthesizes how the selected literature conceptualizes policy integration, stakeholder involvement, sustainability, technological maturity, and transferability across different urban tourism contexts. The findings reveal a conceptual evolution from traditional policy models focused on heritage conservation and marketing to holistic policy frameworks for tourism sustainability, ultimately leading to a technology-driven smart tourism city model. The context-based comparison of the models suggests that none of the reviewed models can be treated as universally implementation-ready without adaptation to local institutional, technological, socio-cultural, and environmental conditions. While the smart tourism city model shows promise as a conceptual framework for strengthening stakeholder integration and supporting data-informed sustainability-oriented governance, its applicability remains constrained in urban contexts with limited technological infrastructure and governance capacity. The study, therefore, contributes a comparative lens for assessing the contextual fit of urban tourism policy models, while also acknowledging that further empirical and post-implementation research is needed to evaluate their actual sustainability outcomes. The study highlights the need for context-sensitive and adaptable policy approaches in future urban tourism planning. However, the review is limited by a small sample size, which restricts geographical coverage in regions with scarce literature, such as Africa.