From volume to care: an ethic of aver cura for tourism and host-community well-being

Purpose. This paper proposes an ethic of care — aver cura — as an integrative concept for destination development that connects two disconnected uses of "care" in tourism scholarship and specifies how the concept can be observed and measured. Design/methodology/approach. The paper is conceptual. It synthesizes tourism studies, public health and the ethics of care, and illustrates the argument through the single case of Meran, South Tyrol, a historic alpine health resort. Findings. Tourism research invokes care as an ethos, while public health and health tourism treat care as provision; the two seldom meet. An ethic of aver cura, built on caring for self, others and place, integrates them and reframes success from volume to sustaining visitor, resident, worker and landscape together. Civic trust, distinct from commercial destination trust, is the operational core through which care becomes measurable. Research limitations/implications. The six propositions are conceptual and untested; they set a future agenda for comparative and longitudinal research. Practical implications. Destinations would shift from volume metrics to civic-trust and community indicators and to recurring deliberative governance. Social implications. The approach foregrounds the well-being of residents and tourism workers alongside that of visitors. Originality/value. The paper offers an integrative concept of care that bridges ethical and public-health registers, distinguishes civic from commercial trust as its measurable core, and grounds care in a destination's own formative logic rather than importing it from outside. Preprint of a manuscript currently under review at the Journal of Tourism Futures (Emerald). This is the submitted version and has not been peer-reviewed.