NS34 Session 20

Tourism and hospitality systems worldwide are facing intensifying and interconnected sustainability challenges, including climate change, resource scarcity, geopolitical instability, labour precarity, economic uncertainty, and increasing regulatory and societal scrutiny (Bramwell et al., 2017; Gössling et al., 2021; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2021). These pressures call into question the long-term viability of dominant growth-oriented business models and highlight the need for more holistic, resilient, regenerative and impact-focused approaches to value creation across tourism and hospitality ecosystems (Boluk et al., 2019; Johansen & Konu, 2025; Lew et al., 2020; McTiernan et al., 2025). 

This session explores how sustainable, circular and regenerative business models can be designed, adapted and governed across destinations, hospitality providers and wider experience networks (Bocken et al., 2014; Blanco-Moreno et al., 2025; Johansen & Konu, 2025). Moving beyond a narrow destination focus, this session will explicitly include accommodation, food and beverage, cultural and creative enterprises, nature-based operators, transport actors and hybrid public–private governance arrangements that shape tourism experiences and impacts (per O’Rourke et al., 2025). Particular attention is paid to business models as systems of value creation, delivery and capture that operate across multiple stakeholders and scales (Bocken et al., 2014), and to their potential to contribute to climate mitigation and adaptation, social wellbeing, equitable value distribution and long-term resilience (Bellato et al., 2023; Iddawala & Lee, 2025). 

Presentation on the following key themes are particularly welcome: circularity and resource stewardship, regenerative and nature-positive tourism, resilience and adaptive capacity, governance and institutional innovation, impact measurement and performance assessment (financial and non-financial), equity and inclusion, digitalisation and AI, and post-growth or degrowth perspectives (per Higgins-Desbiolles, 2021; Poroy Arsoy et al., 2024). The session also welcomes conceptual, empirical and methodological contributions, as well as in progress works, that advance systemic transformations towards just, resilient and regenerative tourism and hospitality futures.