Author Identifier (ORCID)
Abstract
As the pursuit of sustainability increasingly calls for social inclusion and equity, this study examines how social justice shapes community empowerment in tourism destinations. Although justice is central to sustainable development discourse, limited empirical understanding exists of how its dimensions collectively influence empowerment. Focusing on the tourism across three major tourism destinations, Australia, the UK, and the USA, the research examines the relationships between recognition, procedural, and distributive justice and different dimensions of community empowerment including psychological, social, economic and political empowerment. Utilizing a quantitative approach and guided by equity and social justice theories, the study employs partial least squares structural equation modelling and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The findings reveal that social justice significantly enhances empowerment, with notable variations across different dimensions. Recognition justice strongly influences psychological and social empowerment, procedural justice is key to political empowerment, and distributive justice has the greatest effect on economic empowerment. The study highlights the need for tourism policymakers to address these dimensions of justice in policy design and to foster meaningful participation of local communities in tourism initiatives. By actively integrating social justice into tourism development, policymakers can promote inclusivity, ensuring that diverse voices are represented and that benefits are equitably distributed.
Keywords
community empowerment, equity theory, residents’ perception, Social justice, tourism development
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
1-1-2026
ISSN
02508281
Publication Title
Tourism Recreation Research
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
School
School of Business and Law
RAS ID
99661
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Rastegar, R., Seyfi, S., & Rasoolimanesh, S. M. (2026). The justice–empowerment nexus: Pathways to inclusive and sustainable tourism development. Tourism Recreation Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2026.2690982