Changing tourism in a changing Europe

Tourism is a hybrid phenomenon that blends and transcends spaces, places and all their environmental, social and economic sectors. The interplay with social, environmental/ecological and economic development has put the aspiration for sustainable tourism centre stage of discourses in research and practice since the early 1990ies (for example, the Journal of Sustainable Tourism was established in 1993). Crises and even collapses have shaped and affected tourism, and it is (still) often seen as a remedy and development pathway, while its contribution to the global carbon footprint and global tourism rebound after the COVID pandemic challenge the (un)sustainability of tourism.

This session invites – but is not limited to – contributions that

a) address transitions to more (un)sustainable forms of tourism (e.g. away from collective or commercial provisioning of accommodation to individualized holiday rentals or from public spa and bathing to private swimming pools), changing mobility patterns (e.g. charter flight and package tourism versus low-cost flights, automobile and public transport) from a theoretical, conceptual or empirical perspective.

b) address material and social transitions to more (un)sustainable forms of tourism (e.g. co-creation of tourism involving local communities versus displacement of local communities by and through tourism)

c) deal with the development of infrastructures for tourism and respective path dependencies (e.g. technical systems of winter sports)

In a nutshell, our session seeks to engage with critical discussions about tourism and its transformation as well as analysing tourism as a transformative vector of socio-ecological change.