NS29 Session 12

Many human activities require land, and tourism is no exception. Rapidly increasing interest and involvement in tourism activities before the COVID-19 pandemic raised questions regarding sustainable use of land and resources that the tourism industry threatens and at the same time relies on. Moreover, exponentially growing global human population puts additional pressure on land and increases demand for resources needed to sustain the livelihoods. Urbanization is taking over rural areas and transforming open spaces. Solutions needed to deal with the consequences of intensifying human activities, such as energy transition to renewable sources, which is of crucial importance for mitigating climate change, come with additional demand for land. Increasing use of land and resources points to the pressing importance of nature conservation and dedicating land for preserving biodiversity, physical features, ecosystem services and place values in these precarious times. Diversification of land uses and growing stakeholder numbers with divergent preferences add additional challenges to the work of policymakers and planners. Increasing land use competition draws attention to multiple land uses and stresses the importance of employing participatory approaches for inclusion of stakeholders into land use planning processes.

These developments emphasize the need for further research focusing on the compatibility of the various land uses, areas of potential conflicts, and opportunities for collaboration of tourism with other land uses towards sustainable development. Presentations of theoretical, methodological, and empirical papers focusing on the following themes but not limited to them are welcome in this session:

• Compatibility of tourism with other land uses, such as agriculture, energy harnessing, residential areas, and resident’s recreational activities
• Conflict management between tourism and other land uses
• Methodological contributions to land use planning, conflicts, and their solutions
• Theoretical contributions to land use planning, conflicts, and their solutions

Abstracts