Reinventing Tourism: Towards sustainable urban tourism design (EN)

The Corona pandemic made the tourism system stop in its tracks. Although it did not take long for academics and tourism stakeholders to note that the pandemic provided a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to allow tourism to re-invent itself in a more sustainable way. There is little evidence of such a structural transformation of global tourism in practice though, as businesses seek to restart tourism quickly following a year without significant income. At the same time, city destinations do not want to return to a situation of tourism excesses and overtourism.

The big question that city destinations face today, may be not so different than the one they faced prior to the start of the pandemic: ’How to develop and design urban tourism in a sustainable way that leads to flourishing city-destinations?’

The inaugural lecture forms the start of Ko’s research line "New Urban Tourism" which focuses on a sustainable development and design of urban tourism, including tourism ‘off the beaten track’. The research line is closely aligned to the activities associated with Inholland's Living Labs in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. 

Want to know more about Ko's vision already? Then please have a look at this article