Many countries worldwide rely on tourism for their economic well-being and development. But with issues such as over-tourism and environmental degradation looming large, there is a pressing need to determine a way forward in a sustainable and mutually rewarding manner.

With this motivation, we here propose an asymmetric evolutionary game with mobility where local stakeholders and tourists can either cooperate or defect in a spatially structured setting.

Our study reflects that sustainable tourism is primarily determined by an optimal trade-off between economic benefits of the stakeholders and their costs related to the application of sustainability policies. In contrast, the specific benefits and costs of the tourists are comparatively less relevant. The reader can also observe that allowing for greater tourist mobility decreases cooperation and leads to faster polarization among local stakeholders.

In agreement with observations worldwide, we identify decreasing population densities in tourist areas in terms of both, stakeholders and tourists, to be a key aid to greater cooperation and overall sustainability of tourism.

These results are rooted in spatial formations and complex alliances that manifest spontaneously through the evolutionary dynamics in a structured population.

M. Chica, J. M. Hernández, M. Perc, Sustainability in tourism determined by an asymmetric game with mobility, Journal of Cleaner Production 355 (2022) 131662.