research

While the COVID-19 crisis has brought tourism to a standstill with all kinds of repercussions, at the same time the pandemic created momentum for destinations to steer tourism towards sustainable development. An opportunity presents itself for destinations that were already facing some of the negative aspects excessive tourism can bring, but also for destinations that are still in the development phase of tourism and want to integrate sustainability from the beginning. 

Even though many destinations are looking to develop tourism in a more sustainable matter, clear guidelines on how to do so are often still missing. Sustainability is a complicated and sometimes fuzzy concept. What does it mean for a destination to be truly sustainable? How can the successfulness of a destination be measured in other ways than counting visitor numbers and expenditures? What metrics can be used for that? And who needs to be involved?

As part of my Ph.D. research project at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, I  tried to find answers to these questions in co-creation with the destination itself. I did this by offering workshops based on Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth, an economic model that envisions a sustainable society and considers both the ecological as well as the social aspect of sustainability. In collaboration with the destination, in these workshops, the theory is applied to the context of tourism. Subsequently it is translated into metrics and action steps for the destination to apply in practice.