| Abstract |
Purpose The whole economy is in a transition process from the linear to the circular paradigm. The tourism industry is no stranger to this paradigm shift, so the purpose of this paper is to stimulate a reflection on the major challenges and opportunities derived from this transformation. Design/methodology/approach To inspire discussion, desk research was carried out based on scientific databases (Web of Science and Scopus mainly). This scholarly approach was complemented with another, using internet search engines to find additional documents of a professional nature that could provide extra pieces of evidence about the application of circular economy (CE) in tourism. Findings The state-of-the-art in this field is presented, characterized by the scarcity of the scientific literature available and the lack of a common understanding of this concept, with a limited scope in its use. Further, there are very few well-documented initiatives on the CE in the tourism industry. Therefore, this is still an under-researched area that inevitably will deserve much more attention in the years to come. Nonetheless, as a certain degree of terminological confusion was identified, this work is an attempt to help in the conceptual clarification of the CE, with its particularities when is applied to the tourism industry. Practical implications The CE concept is a relatively new, but inescapable, paradigm whose application will contribute to a more sustainable tourism industry. The tourism industry has a significant role to play in economic transformation which is ongoing, because of its multiplier effect on the whole economy and its capacity to encourage circular flows among its suppliers and customers. Additionally, it is important to boost this transformation awareness among businesses and consumers, together with some stimuli, particularly for SMEs, with more limited resources for innovation. Effective coordination within the complex and fragmented policy environment is also needed among the various interacting levels (European, national, regional [ horizontal ellipsis ]) that influence the tourism sector. Originality/value To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first work carried out to systematize what the literature says about the intersection of the CE and tourism. |