Managing Economic Leakages for Building Resilient and Sustainable Tourism Destination Performance

Tourism yields substantial economic benefits to destinations. However, economic leakages often undermine these benefits, weakening local value chains and hindering long-term economic sustainability. While existing research predominantly emphasises supply-side interventions to address leakages, limited attention has been given to demand-side determinants and to tourists' behaviour in exacerbating or mitigating leakages. This study develops a conceptual framework integrating economic leakages, particularly demand-side determinants, behavioural nudges and destination resilience, to investigate how nudging interventions can influence tourists’ choices and preferences toward local products and services. By synthesising insights from economic leakages, behavioural economics and sustainable tourism, this study highlights both theoretical contributions and practical implications for policymakers and tourism stakeholders. Additionally, it identifies key implementation challenges of behavioural interventions and proposes strategic measures to address them. The study concludes by outlining future research directions, emphasising empirical validation and policy-driven applications to foster sustainable tourism development and economic resilience.