Advancing healthy communities policy through tourism, leisure, and events research

This introduction to the special issue of JPRiTLE on Advancing Healthy Communities through Tourism, Leisure, and Events is aimed at inspiring a healthy communities research agenda in our field. The authors argue advancing healthy communities/cities ought to be at the core of what we do as tourism, leisure, and events (TLE) scholars. Accordingly, this introductory article endeavours to advance healthy communities as a line of research by encouraging TLE scholars to forward the World Health Organization's Ottawa Charter for health promotion and assist in the exploration of public values for healthy communities. In so doing, the authors provide readers with background about the healthy communities movement and offer direction in terms of how research can build healthy communities through evidence-based policy.