Assessing <scp>UN SDGs</scp> Operationalization in Sustainable Tourism Development: A Multi‐Tiered Semantic Taxonomy Approach

ABSTRACT This study examines how the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are operationalized in the empirical literature on sustainable tourism development (STD). Methodologically, a corpus of 39 studies was retained from Scopus and Web of Science after a systematic screening process. Abstract text mining was used through an unsupervised machine learning model to identify thematic structures across the literature. The resulting topics were organized into a multi‐level semantic taxonomy structured across micro, meso, and macro levels of implementation. The results show that the UN SDGs are mobilized through three forms of operationalization in STD research. The main types include normative, instrumental, and performative uses. Performative use is the prevalent configuration across the corpus, both at the micro and macro levels. The literature also shows that research focuses heavily on a few specific segments of tourism, like sustainable tourism, ecotourism, and community‐based tourism. Spatially, most studies in the Global South focus on local and national scales, and those in the Global North tend to look at regional scales. These taxonomies bring out recurring underexplored areas and provide useful future directions for (a) policymakers and public authorities, (b) destination management organizations and tourism planners, (c) tourism businesses and tourism development professionals, (d) international organizations and development agencies, as well as (e) higher education institutions, to help them identify existing ways to implement the UN SDGs in areas where STD does not seem to be fully utilized, and to coordinate their efforts across different levels, which may be necessary to move the 2030 Agenda forward.