Examining the orientation of sustainability communication on official tourism websites by using an automated checklist

Communicating sustainability has become a major priority for destinations in the modern tourism sector. With the increasing emphasis on sustainable tourism, destination websites serve as critical platforms for disseminating information about sustainable practices and initiatives. Many studies have evaluated the orientation of sustainability communication on destination websites using a manual approach that tends to be unreliable or applying a complicated computational method that is challenging for many people. This study aims to assess the orientation of sustainability communication of main destinations in the Asia Pacific by developing and using a customized automated checklist application. Results obtained from the application are then compared with the results obtained using manual checking. In evaluating the sustainability communication orientation across various destination websites in the Asia-Pacific area, the automated checklist proved to be a valuable tool with comparatively higher accuracy. Importantly, Southeast Asian travel destinations fall within the moderate orientation category for sustainability communication. In contrast, destinations in other regions of this study, notably East Asia and the Pacific, place a higher importance on online sustainability communication. Other conclusions related to practical and academic aspects are also formulated in this study.