NS34 Session 25

 

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Title: Transformative Tourism Experiences

Organisers: Konstantin Gridnevskiy and Sarah Seidel

Affiliation: NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences 

 

Description

Tourism is increasingly expected to be an active agent for good in a world shaped by climate change, geopolitical uncertainty, digital disruption, and demands for social justice. This session invites papers that examine transformative tourism experiences as a pathway through which tourism may contribute to positive development — starting with the traveller and extending to communities and environments.

We welcome papers that examine transformative tourism at the individual level. The focus is on the tourist (and, where relevant, other individuals engaged in tourism such as hosts, guides, and workers) and the ways tourism experiences may trigger shifts in identity, values, emotions, beliefs, attitudes, and everyday practices. We invite conceptual, critical, and empirical research that explores transformation as a process occurring before, during, and after travel — including how transformation is initiated, facilitated, and sustained over time. We particularly encourage contributions that connect individual transformation to contemporary conditions affecting tourism.
Possible topics include:

  • Identifying which features of tourism experiences act as catalysts for transformation
  • Exploring how travellers interpret, internalise, and apply transformative insights after returning home
  • Assessing observable and measurable effects on well-being, identity development, and behavioural change
  • Considering how experiences can be purposefully crafted to maximise transformative potential
  • Examining whether transformation reflects profound value/belief change or primarily behavioural adjustment
  • Investigating how timing (before, during, and after travel) shapes both intensity and long-term sustainability
  • Addressing ethical and methodological challenges in studying personal transformation through tourism

By engaging with these topics, this session aims to refine conceptual understandings of transformation in tourism while also providing insights relevant to practice and policy.