philosophical foundations for sustainability reinforcement of mass tourism

The prevailing impression is that mass tourism and alternative tourism are polar opposites. Zero-one thinking has led to a complete rejection of mass tourism in favor of the other. We argue that this is just another overly simplistic stance towards the sustainable development of tourism. With focusing on sustainability aspects of mass tourism, we are, realistically, seeing the glass as half full rather than half empty and stressing the need to improve the sustainability of mass tourism. We used the meta-synthesis technique and thematic analysis to identify the philosophical foundations for reinforcement sustainability of mass tourism, trying to answer two fundamental questions, "what is it" and "why it is important". 704 basic codes, 79 basic themes, and 37 organizing themes were classified into 8 global themes. For the "what is sustainable mass tourism” question, five global themes of “sustainability as a continuum”, “sustainability as a comprehensive concept”, "theoretical roots of sustainable mass tourism formation", "small scale tourism development model does not have priority over large scale model and vice versa", "convergence or divergence of mass and alternative tourism" and for the "why it is important" question, three global themes of "increasing growth of tourism simultaneously on supply and demand sides", "reasons for re-considering mass tourism", and "limitations of the alternative tourism model" were identified. We argue that explaining foundations of sustainability in mass tourism, would change the prevailing impression of tourism academics and planners about the relationship between sustainability and mass tourism and reveals its hidden potentials.