Achieving Social Sustainability Through Long-Term Destination Planning: A Theoretical Model for Coastal Destinations Threatened by Climate Change

Climate change continues to be one of the major threats to tourism development, with coastal destinations particularly vulnerable to impacts such as extreme weather events, rising sea levels, hotter temperatures and the loss of ecosystem diversity. While the environmental and economic impacts of climate change are widely acknowledged, less research has identified the impacts on the destination community. This paper explores the concerns about climate change in a small coastal community and how responses to this threat by the destination's local government authority may affect its long-term social sustainability. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 government representatives and community members in the Livingstone Shire, Queensland, Australia. Thematic analysis identified several key themes including infrastructure, collaborative planning, climate impacts, response to climate change, vulnerability and achieving long-term social sustainability. This research makes an important contribution by proposing a theoretical model that demonstrates how achieving long-term social sustainability requires destination planning through stakeholder collaboration and community consultation and takes into account several dynamic factors at the destination level. The model also has practical implications and can be adopted by destination communities to encourage long-term planning that maintains and enhances social sustainability as part of a destination-wide response to climate change.