NS34 Session 7

This session aims to share, present and discuss learnings from and experiences with implementing and applying regenerative tourism actions and activities in local contexts. The aim is a reaction to what we see as a dominating conceptualization/theorization of regenerative tourism which, so far, has characterized much of the research literature. In comparison, grounded work and experiences are much less reported, challenging a natural bridging of the conceptual and theoretical work with actual introductions and implementations of regenerative tourism in local communities. In this session, we therefore wish to take a step away from the conceptual/theoretical discussions and instead focus more on ‘hands-on’ work on and experiences (positive as well as negative) with regenerative tourism that increasingly more stakeholders at local levels are undertaking. These stakeholders include for example DMOs and various individual or group-based tourism actors, but also local citizen groups and associations, and even whole communities. Many of these local stakeholders find the concept regenerative tourism intriguing and potentially helpful, but also difficult to apply and work with in their local contexts. One reason is the notorious difficulty in understanding the at times very abstract nature of and content in regenerative tourism. Another reason is what we see as a lack of a shared knowledge base containing practical experiences, wherefrom local stakeholders can learn - both from each other and between various settings and geographies; essentially, a toolbox and best practice knowledge base. Hence, in this session, we encourage scholars as well as practitioners within the industry to share, present and discuss practical learnings and experiences from their local context. With this we hope to collect enough cases and examples across the Nordic geography and beyond to discuss a possible future Special Issue on the topic in The Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism. 

Keywords 

Regenerative tourism; implementation; application; practical knowledge; local contexts