Author Identifier (ORCID)
Abstract
Low-carbon tourism initiatives frequently generate stakeholder conflicts, even when sustainability goals are widely shared. This study examines how such conflicts arise and propagate in heritage tourism, using Quanzhou Ancient City, China, as the focal case. Findings show that government officials, tourism operators, residents, and tourists hold divergent cognitive, emotional, and behavioural orientations toward low-carbon policies. These divergences become visible as interlinked interlinked structural, value, relationship, information, and interest conflicts. Within China's vertical-departmental (tiao–kuai) governance system, participants described conflicts as interacting across governance arenas and stakeholder relationships. This study contributes a process- grounded framework of triggering, inducement, manifestation, and transmission for explaining conflict emergence, intensification, and circulation in sustainable heritage tourism.
Keywords
conflict transmission, heritage tourism, low-carbon tourism, stakeholder attitude
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
1-1-2026
ISSN
21568316
Publication Title
Tourism Planning & Development
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
School
School of Business and Law
RAS ID
99671
Funding Information
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article is supported by National Social Science Fund of China (grant number: 22BGL157).
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Content Type
Metadata only
Recommended Citation
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in TOURISM PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT on 30th June 2026, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/21568316.2026.2695693
Sun, P., Li, X., Huang, S., & Ji, X. (2026). Stakeholder conflicts in low-carbon tourism: A process-oriented framework. Tourism Planning & Development. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568316.2026.2695693