Sustainable destinations: semantic and semiotic representations in translations Open Access

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, the tourism industry began adapting and redefining its role as a global activity. The historic near-total suspension of activity in the tourism sector accelerated the conceptualisation, transition and shift toward a more sustainable model, as envisioned in the 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Sustainable tourism ^[1] is specifically mentioned in Goal 8 (inclusive and sustainable economic growth), Goal 12 (sustainable consumption) and Goal 14 (sustainable development), and defined by the World Tourism Organization (currently UN Tourism) as tourism that “takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.”

The importance of sustainability was further emphasised when the UN's 70th General Assembly designated 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development within the context of the launch of the 2030 Agenda. Responding to the various challenges posed by mass consumption and its significant environmental impact, public institutions responsible for promoting destinations have increasingly engaged with the sustainable tourism goals of the 2030 Agenda.

In recent years the tourism sector has seen a marked shift towards sustainability awareness. Stakeholder theory, first introduced by Freeman (2010) in 1984, argues that an organisation's success depends on how well it manages its relationships with its stakeholders, groups and the individuals who can affect or are affected by the organisation's actions. From the perspective of sustainable tourism ethics, the theory emphasises that organisations have a responsibility to consider the interests of all their stakeholders and not just their shareholders (Byrd, 2007; Darnall et al., 2010; Freeman, 2010; Nicolaides, 2015; Riahi, 2017; Hardy and Pearson, 2018; Salman et al., 2024; Dodds, 2025; Panagiotopoulou and Skoultsos, 2025; etc.).

To meet the need for long-term tourism planning and resource management, several frameworks have been proposed. One of these is the Community Capital Frameworks (CCF), a holistic and inclusive approach that highlights the importance of community capital or resources for achieving sustainable development (Flora, 2018; Emery and Flora, 2020; Panzarella et al., 2025). Another is the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA), a people-centred framework that focuses on improving the environmental and local dimensions of communities (Stone and Nyaupane, 2018; Dodds, 2020; Morse, 2025). A further example is Multi-Stakeholder Frameworks (MSF), which are implemented at tourism destinations to address problems of sustainable development through collaboration and governance among diverse actors (Feyers et al., 2020; Paulino et al., 2023; Pham et al., 2023; Nguyen and Hoang, 2023; Gasparini and Cortés Vázquez, 2024; Ivars-Baidal et al., 2024; Nguyen et al., 2024). When applied to the promotion of sustainable tourism destinations, these approaches – grounded in the stakeholder theory – aim to reduce tourism's ecological, social and cultural impacts while supporting sustainable tourism planning.

This review highlights that language, meaning and communication – especially in multilingual contexts – are conspicuously absent from these frameworks. The paper therefore focuses on the semantic and semiotic representations found in translations and seeks to contribute to the field from a translation perspective. By applying semantic and semiotic qualitative data analysis (QDA) to a multilingual corpus of translations, the study contributes to the understanding of how the concept of “sustainable tourism destination” is projected in multilingual promotional discourse, thereby adding a linguistic dimension to the existing theory. At the pre-trip stage of tourism promotion, Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) – such as the public bodies responsible for promoting tourism destinations – should incorporate multilingual promotion as a part of long-term planning, since institutions play an important communicative role.

The Instituto de Turismo de España (Turespaña) is the public institution attached to the Spanish government that is responsible for promoting Spain as a tourism destination worldwide. In 2025, Turespaña presented its Strategy for Positioning Spain as a Sustainable Destination, aimed at strengthening the country's global position as a sustainable tourism destination. The strategy seeks to improve international tourists' perceptions, attract demand segments that maximise social and economic benefits, promote responsible travel models and position Turespaña as a key factor in driving change and shaping global discussions on sustainable tourism ^[2].

The Tourist Destination Image (hereafter TDI) is both a construct and a cumulative conceptual process (Hunter, 2016) that forms part of the referential framework of knowledge a tourist holds about a specific destination. It is shaped by multiple inputs (Hunt, 1975) throughout the image-formation experience. Tourism operates within a social and communicative framework where the promotion of destinations, products and services occurs primarily during the pre-trip or visit stage (Chak Keung and Fung Ching, 2011; Dann, 1996; González-Rodríguez et al., 2016; Ho et al., 2016; Jani and Hwang, 2011; Woodside and Martin, 2007). Within this stage, the projected tourist destination image (hereafter proTDI) emerges as a marketer-based image (Andreu et al., 2000; Choi et al., 2007; Govers et al., 2007; Kanwel et al., 2019; Li et al., 2021; Stepchenkova and Morrison, 2008; Tegegne et al., 2018), shaped by the accumulation of aesthetic representations drawn from multiple sources of tourism information and promotional content.

In the pre-trip context, discursive practices manifest through specific communication situations such as promotional tourism texts (Castellano-Martínez, 2020, 2021; González-Pastor, 2018; Gorozhankina, 2017; Kelly, 1998) where referential spaces are projected as promoted tourism destinations. These texts offer information mediated through appellative, persuasive and poetic discourse focused on the consumption of the destination as a product. As such, the destinations promoted in the proTDI are constructed as mythological signifiers (Febas, 1978), myth-places (Lash and Urry, 2002) and locus amoenus (Bugnot, 2009) to be marketed and consumed by potential tourists who engage with the destination's image (Gallarza et al., 2002; Lai and Li, 2015; Baloglu and Brinberg, 1997; Yu-Shan and Ching-Hsun, 2012) in affective, emotional or appreciative terms (Baloglu and Brinberg, 1997; Baloglu and Mangaloglu, 2001; Fakeye and Crompton, 1991; García et al., 2012; Godnov and Redek, 2016; González-Rodríguez et al., 2016).

The proTDI is shaped by advertising and promotional strategies that rely on both linguistic and non-linguistic attributes to define, differentiate and position a tourism destination relative to competing alternatives. When the sustainability approach is incorporated, these attributes are further shaped by related semantic and semiotic fields.

This study employs a qualitative research design to analyse how sustainable destination promotion is conceptualised through both linguistic and non-linguistic attributes using Turespaña as a case study. The choice of design is justified by Turespaña's central role in promoting Spain as a tourism destination way that emphasise environmental sustainability and social responsibility, in line with the Spanish government's strategy and the microsite mentioned above. Following this rationale, the following research questions (RQ) are proposed:

1. Aim 1: The first aim of this study is to compile a corpus of multilingual Turespaña promotional brochures that reflect the institution's emphasis on sustainability based on an analysis of the microsite's content.

1. Aim 2: From a linguistic perspective, the study aims to analyse the multilingual attribution of the corpus to diagnose the uniqueness and frequency of the adjectives and nouns that define and construct the proTDI.

1. Aim 3: The non-linguistic aim of this study is to analyse the photographs and colours of the corpus to diagnose the iconic and chromatically-based images that define and serve to construct the proTDI.

This study attempts to define the proTDI of Spain as a sustainable and green-aware destination based on the multilingual promotion content projected by Turespaña. The research employs QDA on an ad hoc multilingual corpus compiled using data-processing computing techniques and assisted by artificial intelligence (AI). The analysis follows the thematic triangulation approach proposed by José Luis Febas (1978) to analyse the semiology of tourism language in official Spanish tourism brochures. In his case study, Febas treated tourism brochures as a primary medium for the manifestation and concretisation of tourism language, analysing both verbal and visual elements from a semiotic perspective. This study marked a first milestone in thematic triangulation by analysing the content of 250 Spanish monolingual tourism brochures and the interplay between text and imagery over a 15-year period. Febas justified his triangular model (p. 31) – originally applied by Lévi-Strauss in his anthropological research – as particularly effective for organising and analysing the positive content of the corpus rather than the geometric models based on structural semantics, such as Brøndal's Logical Hexagon of (1943) and Greimas's Semiotic Square (1966, 1970).

Recent research has examined tourism texts as meaningful units for data analysis taking a diverse linguistic and communicative approach (Agorni, 2012, 2016, 2018; Bugnot, 2009; Caldevilla-Domínguez et al., 2023; Carreira et al., 2023; Castellano-Martínez, 2020, 2021; González-Fernández and Rodríguez-Tapia, 2019; González-Pastor, 2018; Malamatidou, 2017a, 2018, 2024; Rodríguez-Tapia and González-Fernández, 2020; Sulaiman, 2014, 2016; Sulaiman and Wilson, 2018, 2019). By approaching tourism texts as meaningful units of tourism in a communicative context, researchers can unpack the tiered projection of the destination (linguistic, visual and ideological) underpinning the narratives. In particular, the study of projected images of tourism destinations emerges from a multilingual QDA methodology based on a multilingual corpus (Malamatidou, 2017b) to extract destination attributes (Castellano-Martínez and Rodríguez-González, 2023; 2025). This paper adapts and extends this methodological framework to examine how Spain is projected as a sustainable destination on Turespaña's official microsite. This approach provides a systematic extraction of the tourism destination's attributes – related to authenticity, sustainability and cultural heritage, among others – while accounting for the nuances in a context of multilingual communication through translation. In an increasingly globalised era in which tourism is digitally mediated, these methodologies are innovative in capturing the complexity of destinations' images across diverse linguistic and cultural contexts.

The thematic triangulation proposed by Febas (1978: 20–21) focuses on two main instances by recognising that tourism brochures are not just collections of random information, but (presumably) strategically crafted texts designed to convey a specific “projection” of the destination in line with the goal of tourism promotion. Thus, Febas proposes (1) the thematic instance (or “thematised content”) and (2) the discursive instance, by considering tourism brochures as part of a broader communicative context, in this case tourism promotion. Current research (e.g. Caldevilla-Domínguez et al., 2023; Castellano-Martínez, 2020, 2021; Castellano-Martínez and Rodríguez-González, 2023; 2025) continues to show that tourism texts, whether in print or digital format, rely on a limited number of recurring themes to promote a destination's image, focusing on the reader as an expectant tourist consumer. Although Febas' thematic triangulation may seem outdates, his proposal remains foundational, providing a touchstone for analysing tourism texts by balancing the specificity of these units of meaning within the context of tourism promotion as a consumable narrative.

The thematic triangulation model provides a structured approach to understanding and dissecting this content through various thematic sequences (Febas, 1978, p. 31) which form the core of the tourism message to be projected at the referential, textual and semantic levels. In the discursive instance, several dimensions are considered as factors that influence how the message is perceived as a part of the tourism communication circuit.

Our study draws on thematic triangulation to prompt our Large Language Model assistant (LeChat by Mistral) ^[3] The aim is to obtain thematised content categories by frequency of appearance from the new Turespaña microsite Sustainable Travel – A New Way to Discover Spain ^[4]. The prompt was executed on 4 May 2025 as follows:

The AI-assisted analysis yielded the Thematised Content Categories shown in Table 1.

These Thematised Content Categories represent the conceptual framework developed by Turespaña when promoting Spain as a destination to be explored sustainably. After defining these categories, an ad hoc multilingual corpus of Turespaña brochures was compiled according to the categories derived from an AI content data analysis: A – Nature and Climate, B – Culture and Traditions, C – Responsible Tourism and D – Local Experiences.

The brochures were downloaded on 4 May 2025 from both of Turespaña's official websites: (1) the institution's new microsite, Sustainable Travel – A New Way to Discover Spain, and (2) its former website ^[5]. The purpose was to offer a representative resource of the multilingual promotional material developed by Turespaña. A total of 68 texts in seven languages were compiled. The Spanish (ES) version was the source text (ST), while the rest of the language versions – English (EN), French (FR), German (DE), Italian (IT), Portuguese (PT) and Russian (RU) – were translations, also referred to as target texts (TTs) from a functionalist perspective (Nord, 2010; Pięta, 2024). Versions in other languages were also collected, including Chinese, Dutch, Korean, Japanese and Polish, but their translations did not reach the minimum threshold of 55% of the translated average that would make them sufficiently representative in the corpus. A minimum coverage of 55% was established to ensure that the translations were comprehensive enough to accurately represent the full scope of the original content, particularly in terms of balanced linguistic and conceptual attribution. By excluding versions below this percentage, the totality and comparability of the dataset are maintained, ensuring that the translations provide robust and coherent insights when analysed, as the excluded versions could lead to inconsistent or less reliable findings in the QDA. By excluding versions below this percentage, the totality and comparability of the dataset are maintained (Table 2), ensuring that the translations provide robust and coherent insights when analysed, as the excluded versions could lead to inconsistent or less reliable findings in the QDA.

The brochures are similarly structured for every language version and were analysed using the content analysis method via AI assistance processing for analysis at the Instituto Andaluz de Investigación e Innovación en Turismo (Andalusian Institute of Tourism Research and Innovation [IATUR]) ^[6]. This work studies the linguistic and non-linguistic contents of the texts by analysing the attribution in terms of most frequent or unique nouns and adjectives, given their denotative function as lexical units of the language, as well as the most frequent photographs and chromatic decalage of the brochures.

The LLM was used to analyse linguistic and non-linguistic attributes (image content and colour predominance) through a two-step process. First, all the files in the multilingual corpus were converted to TXT format to facilitate their processing. For the analysis of linguistic values, the first and second prompts were executed on 4 May 2025 as follows: “1. Make a list of the adjectives that appear in the text. The list should be ordered by frequency of appearance in the text. Express this frequency in terms of a count and a percentage; ” and “2. Keep the list you have made. Expand the information with the nouns that the adjectives on the list modify.”

The LLM was then prompted on the same day to analyse image content and dominant colour palettes according to the RGB model (a model widely used in digital contexts) as follows: “3. Make a list of the colours that appear in the document. The list should be ordered by frequency in the document. Express this frequency as a percentage. Also express the percentage of warm colours and cool colours” and “4. Analyse the images that appear in the document. Make a list of the objects, spaces, scenes, and products that appear in the images in the document. Order them by frequency of appearance. Express this frequency in terms of count and percentages. Indicate the percentages of images in which people appear and those in which they do not.”

The qualitative analysis of the multilingual corpus offers both linguistic and non-linguistic findings. As regards the former, the results were grouped according to their linguistic roots, disregarding inflectional suffixes. In relation to RQ2, the percentage frequency across the set of texts by language version identifies the following adjectives when compared to the results of the source text (ES). The adjectives and percentage frequency of appearance are shown across the language versions in Table 3.

The predominant adjectival attribution revolves around the semantic fields of nature (natural, green), antiquity (old, historical) and references to distant historical periods (Roman, medieval). Other positive evaluative adjectives also stood out as Table 4 shows:

Spain is represented in the different versions as a destination that balances natural beauty and historical heritage. However, when the attributions are analysed in denotative terms, the nouns with the highest attributive value are related to the spatial component; that is, the territory over which the destination is projected. The city is the most frequent space in all the versions and has the largest number and diversity of adjectival attributions. The top three most frequent binomials are indicated in Table 5 together with their frequency of appearance.

Urban space predominates in the denotative projection of the corpus in all the versions, together with references to replicable places (e.g. streets, parks, museums, buildings, routes, beaches and houses). Table 6 shows the most frequent nominal value + adjectival value pairs by language version series, thus completing the top ten in the ranking.

The differences between the versions are due, among other possible issues, to the asymmetry between the documents translated into the working languages. Given this, each version reflects a slightly different perspective of Spain as a destination, although cultural, natural, historical and architectural aspects are the common conceptual frameworks of reference.

Regarding RQ3, the QDA of the corpus yielded non-linguistic results on the images used to promote Spain as a sustainable destination as well as on the colour range. An iconic analysis was carried out on each thematic triangle: A. Geographic Support, B. Native Contribution, C. Tourist Consumption and D. Specific Services. In this way, we can assess the iconic projection of each triangle, regardless of linguistic variation, as the images are common in each document (frequency over the series from approx. over 1%).

Based on the above results, Figure 4 and Table 7 ^[7] show how Triangle A focuses its image on the geographical setting of the destination and the projection of people in open natural areas. Triangle B, on the other hand, predominantly features images of urban environments and people in built spaces, such as monuments and cathedrals. Triangle C offers both natural and urban elements and people, whereas Triangle D reiterates the presence of people in coastal urban environments.

In line with the purpose of RQ3, a chromatic frequency analysis of the thematic triangulation under study was conducted. Following the RGB colour model, the top 10 colours for each triangle are listed in Table 8 by percentage frequency of appearance.

In relation to the previous results, Triangle A presents a colour palette of natural tones from dark to blue, followed by earthy contrasts of the geographical setting. This can be observed in the balance of warm and cool tones. In Triangle B, warm colours prevail (74.47%), associated with the native contribution of the destination, related to values of proximity, well-being and comfort. In contrast, Triangle C tends towards cool colours, associated with a peaceful, clean or spacious tourism experience, a bright destination dominated by blues and light greys. Finally, Triangle D again features a predominance of warm colours (79.39%) associated with the specific characteristics of the destination, evoking a welcoming space.

When applied to sustainable tourism, stakeholder theory underscores the need to involve a wide range of actors – including local communities, policymakers, tourists and businesses – in decision-making to foster sustainability, as stated. The theory, however, has primarily concentrated on the structural, materialist and procedural dimensions of engagement and management, frequently neglecting the linguistic and cultural dimensions that can hinder meaningful communication in terms of tourism promotion and planning, the projection of the destinations and tourists' subsequent perceptions of them. The results of the qualitative analysis of linguistic and non-linguistic data extracted from the multilingual corpus allow us to reflect on how Turespaña's projection of the image of Spain as a sustainable destination not only advances our theoretical understanding of semantic and semiotic representations in translations, but also offers practical insights for DMO and stakeholder management referring to sustainable tourism promotion.

As regards RQ1, in linguistic and non-linguistic terms, the promotion of Spain as a sustainable tourism destination falls short of the purpose pursued by Turespaña on the microsite. Indeed, the organisation recommends practices that respect the destination's environment, reconnecting with nature, exploring local traditions and culture and supporting the communities of each region. In contrast, the definition of a conceptual framework based on the microsite applied to Febas' thematic triangulation (Figure 1) has made it possible to establish an empirical reference point for corpus compilation and subsequent analysis (Aim 1).

According to the thematic triangulation model, the content that Turespaña projects in relation to Spain as a sustainable destination focuses on nature and climate (Triangle A), culture and traditions (Triangle B), responsible tourism (Triangle C) and local experiences (Triangle D). Taking this into account, the compilation of the multilingual corpus has been defined based on empirical parameters that also make it possible to establish a minimum percentage of text available in each language version (+55%).

The image projected of Spain as a sustainable destination (RQ1) reflects the country's rich history and natural beauty in linguistic and non-linguistic terms. However, there are no signs of social responsibility, commitment or ethics on the part of tourists. Rather, travel alternatives to the usual destinations in Spain are offered, focusing on nature or historical sites. UN Tourism defines sustainable tourism as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities” ^[8]. Thus, rather than merely highlighting what to visit, the projected image of a sustainable destination should reframe the narrative around how to visit by emphasising ethical consumption, benefiting communities or environmental awareness at the pre-trip stage (Andrades-Caldito et al., 2013; Blancas et al., 2011; Lozano Domínguez and Guevara Plaza, 2025; Lozano Oyola et al., 2012; OECD, 2024; Park and Yoon, 2011; Rasoolimanesh et al., 2023, 2024; Rivera Mateos and Mendoza Montesdeoca, 2022; UN Tourism, 2004, 2023; UN Tourism and United Nations Development Programme, 2017).

As the findings show, the images projected of sustainable tourism destinations should transcend superficial greenwashing and aesthetic appeals to nature, culture or history. Instead, they should integrate some of the key areas envisaged by UN Tourism when promoting sustainable destinations “to foster development and inclusion in rural areas, combat depopulation, advance innovation and value chain integration through tourism, and encourage sustainable practices” ^[9]. According to this organisation, environmental integrity, socio-cultural equity and economic viability means not only showcasing pristine landscapes or eco-certifications, or reproducing old modes of travel in new places, but also highlighting how tourism directly benefits local communities and heritage preservation. The current projection of Turespaña often prioritises visual and linguistic values that appeal to tourists' desire for the authentic, without addressing the systemic impacts of tourism.

The most frequent adjectival values in each language series (RQ2) confirm this (Table 3): natural in Spanish (1.73%), old in English (1.63%), alt in German (1.32%), natural in French (1.77%), storico in Italian (1.56%), antiguo and histórico in Portuguese (1.39%) and historical (исторический) in Russian (1.29%). The adjectives used to describe the destination often evoke distant antiquity (old, ancient, Roman, medieval), as well as green and natural as an idealised space (Figures 2 and 3).

Regarding the projected nominal value (RQ2), the urban space is the most abundant in the image projected of Spain as a sustainable destination. In the seven-language series, the city is projected as the nominal attribute with the highest frequency of occurrence (Table 5). Likewise, adjectival binomials related to cities are very frequent, which results in the evocation of monuments (ES, IT), antiquity and historical pasts (EN, FR, PT, RU) and, exceptionally, Andalusian exoticism (DE). If the nominal spectrum is broadened (Table 6), it can be concluded that:

1. In Spanish, places with strong cultural and natural identity are projected, especially historic centres (55.95%), UNESCO World Heritage Sites (81.81%), national parks (43.02%) and medieval villages (17.39%).

2. In English, national parks (79.16%) and natural areas (30.18%) are mainly featured, although this contrasts with frequent references to narrow streets (41.37%), religious buildings (15.21%) and the country's cultural heritage (25%).

3. In German, Gothic cathedrals (22.92%) and references to major cities (13.04%) and ancient villages (11.63%) abound, with Spain's historic architecture and green landscapes also proving prominent.

4. In French, a more picturesque country is projected, with a strong artistic and archaeological presence, highlighting UNESCO World Heritage sites (58.23%), historic city centres (67.24%), traditional houses (85.71%) and small villages (19.3%).

5. In Italian, the trend of the previous series is repeated as it focuses on historic centres (76.53%) and world heritage sites (82.76%), as well as making reference to national museums (27.03%) and depictions of beautiful places (13.43%).

6. In Portuguese, the historic centres of cities are once again highlighted (63.95%), with narrow streets (35.42%), national museums (28.57%) and old neighbourhoods (26.86%) standing out.

7. Finally, in Russian, spaces of high symbolic value are projected, such as UNESCO World Heritage Sites (75.44%), cathedrals (78.57%), national museums (33.33%) and historic centres (46%).

In Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Russian, Spain is semantically projected as a sustainable destination through the historical heritage and antiquity of its urban centres. In English and German, meanwhile, the presence of culture and nature are highlighted. Finally, in French, the rural sphere and traditional aspects are stressed, without disregarding the above (Aim 2).

Regarding non-linguistic results (RQ3), both iconic projection and chromatic preponderance allow us to conclude that Spain is semiotically projected through open, natural and cultural spaces featuring the presence of human groups. Non-linguistic results have been grouped by triangle rather than by language series (Tables 7 and 8):

1. Triangle A contains many images of groups of people in natural settings, such as landscapes with mountains, trees, water, skies, together with travel-related elements like backpacks and comfortable clothing (t-shirts, jackets). In terms of colour, there is a balance between warm and cool tones, as well as between natural and human elements.

2. Triangle B depicts images of urban environments and architectural elements: streets, courtyards, benches and monuments, but also natural elements such as trees and skies. In terms of colour, warm palettes are more common. This is the triangle of local contribution, conveying values related to approachability, openness and warm and welcoming travellers.

3. Triangle C offers a balanced image between natural spaces and human activity and is much more dynamic than the previous triangles. Elements related to mobility, such as bicycles, bridges and roads often appear. In terms of colour, cool tones associated with calm and tranquillity are the most common, as well as contact with natural environments and traveller's autonomy in them.

4. Finally, Triangle D returns to the urban motif, with the recurrent presence of water and means of transport (boats, oceans), although there are also frequent references to trains and clothing. Warm colours are mainly evoked, linked to destinations near the coast.

In short, non-linguistic data include elements of nature, urban themes, architecture and everyday objects encountered when traveling, but with different emphases (Aim 3). However, the findings and discussion of this study could be significantly enhanced by incorporating a QDA of the versions that did not meet the 55% translation coverage threshold in the corpus (see Corpus Compilation and Data Collection), as well as by examining verbal attributes (such as modes and tenses) in future linguistic analyses. Additionally, adopting a gender perspective to analyse the use of male or female faces and figures, along with the types of actions they perform in the images of the corpus, would make for a more comprehensive and nuanced interpretation of the findings, potentially revealing new insights into the projected image of the destination.

Our analysis reveals that Turespaña's promotion of Spain as a sustainable destination is not supported by adjectival, nominal or chromatic attributions reflecting values of environmental ethics, responsibility or ecology. Rather, it reflects a conceptual framework of alternative destination tourism in which traditional modes and forms of mass tourism are inserted into natural spaces; urban environments with significant historical, monumental or global heritage or cultural activities related to the country's traditions (Figure 4).

The adjectives most frequently used in the corpus consistently fall into three key semantic categories, as Figure 2 and Table 3 show: natural elements (such as natural and green), antiquity (old and historical) and references to ancient historical periods (notably Roman and medieval). These attributions collectively underscore a perception rooted in timelessness, heritage and a deep connection to both nature and history, but there is no relevant sign of a sustainable scope or awareness.

Furthermore, the city emerges as the central spatial reference across all the versions analysed, distinguished not only by its frequency but also by the richness and variety of adjectives used to describe it. Urban environments dominate the corpus' denotative landscape, consistently paired with references to everyday, replicable locations – such as streets, parks, museums, buildings, routes, beaches and houses. This pattern highlights the city's role as both a physical and symbolic hub of conventional tourism consumption, devoid of any sustainable dimension.

Turespaña could focus its promotion on non-Spanish-speaking markets. Particularly, the organisation could consider the translation and mediation of its texts as tools adapted to target markets, with linguistic and semiotic planning suited to the purpose of the campaign and the values it links to the concept of Spain as a sustainable tourism destination.

Spain's semantic framing as a sustainable destination presents a linguistic mosaic, with some variations spanning the versions in qualitative terms. While the Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Russian versions anchor their appeal in the country's historical legacy and timeless urban spaces, the English and German versions spotlight culture and nature, while the French version accentuates rural authenticity and tradition. However, linguistic and non-linguistic findings do not reveal any significant sustainable attributions.

The non-linguistic findings, particularly through iconic projection and chromatic dominance, reveal that Spain is projected by Turespaña as a sustainable destination defined by open, natural and cultural spaces, consistently framed by the presence of groups of people. Unlike the linguistic analysis, these visual and symbolic results have been structured around thematised triangles rather than language-specific series, offering a unified representation of Spain's identity. This underscores the power of visual storytelling in shaping projections of the destination, regardless of the linguistic context.

This initiative to position Spain internationally as a sustainable tourism destination is in its early stages, so this work provides insight into the image of the tourism destination projected by the institution in qualitative terms, diagnosing how the destination is projected in terms of language and image. In this regard, Turespaña could focus on issues intrinsically related to the choice of transport, accommodations or more responsible behaviour for future campaigns.

Through a multilingual QDA approach, this study explores a national-scale case study in Spain, serving as a replicable model for other destinations aiming to align their branding with sustainability objectives according to their own framework. The findings deliver evidence-based recommendations to Turespaña, empowering the organisation to refine its multilingual communication strategies with a view to fostering more sustainable tourism narratives for different audiences. The QDA of semantic and semiotic representations in translations reveals that Turespaña is not neutral when it comes to the multilingual projection of the sustainability dimension in its promotion of tourism destinations.

By bringing together translation studies with sustainable tourism research, this study advances academic understanding of semantic and semiotic representations, while also ensuring that the translations not only accord with sustainable values, but also meet the expectations of all the stakeholders involved.

The authors express their deepest gratitude to Mr. Álvaro Cava (Computer Engineer, Research Technician at the IATUR) for his technical assistance in the LLM data processing, who contributed to the completion of the findings of this study. Furthermore, this paper has been assisted by Writefull-Overleaf editor, an AI assistant designed specifically for research writing through the institutional version of the Universidad de Sevilla.