THE CONVERGENCE OF
SUSTAINABILITY, CIRCULAR ECONOMY,
AND ESG IN TOURISM:
MAPPING RESEARCH TRENDS THROUGH
A QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE
PERSPECTIVE
Theodoros Daglis, Uglješa Stankov, Maria-Anna Katsikogianni, Danijela Ciric Lalic, Konstantinos Tsagarakis
Abstract: The present paper examines the convergence between sustainability (SUS), circular economy (CE), and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) dimensions within tourism through a systematic analysis of scholarly publications indexed in the Scopus database. A dual methodological approach is applied, combining bibliometric analysis and natural language processing-based topic modeling using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). The bibliometric findings indicate a steady increase in tourism research addressing SUS, CE, and ESG, with sustainability remaining the dominant research domain. Thematic network analysis reveals distinct yet interconnected research clusters: CE primarily emphasizes resource efficiency and waste management, ESG focuses on governance, accountability, and performancerelated themes, while sustainability centers on ecotourism and long-term development objectives. Topic modeling further demonstrates a layered structure of the SUS-CE-ESG nexus, where sustainability articulates normative developmental goals, circular economy operationalizes process-level transformation, and ESG embeds measurement and governance mechanisms. By interpreting these dimensions through a quality management and performance lens, the study advances an integrated analytical framework that repositions sustainability in tourism as a measurable, governable, and continuously improvable domain rather than as a purely normative aspiration.
Keywords: Natural language processing, Sustainability, Circular economy, ESG, Sustainable Tourism
DOI: 10.24874/IJQR20.03-07
Recieved: 12.01.2026 Accepted: 30.06.2026 UDC:
Reads: 41 
