Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research: Call for papers is open

Call for session proposals for the 29th Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research

21-23 September 2021 – University of Akureyri, Iceland

Click here to download pdf 

Conference theme: 

Shaping mobile futures: Challenges and possibilities in precarious times

We live in a precarious time. Global climate change is increasingly disturbing species and habitats of which the COVID-19 pandemic perhaps is a speaking and disturbing example. Awareness is growing that the usual order of things does not hold for the future. Everyday discourse directs attention towards global risks and crisis, such as climate change, pandemics and mass migration. At the same time hopes regarding economic growth and competitiveness hinge on technological innovations and smart solutions. - This raises questions about the competences and skills necessary for building decent conditions for life.

The concept of the Anthropocene underlines that humans have become geo-social force, which eliminates the traditional divide between nature and culture as usually defined forcing us to recognize ourselves as humble inhabitants of the Earth. The Earth can no longer be framed as a passive resource for human exploitation. Rather it needs to be acknowledged as an agent in its own right that we live with, not on or above. This demands new political and organisational configurations.

In this context, tourism mobilities hold a somewhat contradictory position. They can be seen as iconic for ever more intensified and unsustainable consumption while at the same time proclaimed to be a driver for sustainable growth. Tourism is blamed for depletion of resources, environmental degradation, CO2 emissions, cultural commodification, and labour and social inequality. Furthermore, in the light of recent events the COVID 19 has highlighted their vulnerability. However, tourism mobilites are seen as a tool for replacing resource-depleting economies and re-establishing force for post-COVID future.

• Is there a way out of the vicious circle of irresponsible production and consumption towards more sustainable futures for tourism?
• Can tourism live up to its expectations and become something other than part of the problem and, if so, how?
• What sort of tools and methods are needed to plan for and manage tourism sustainably in a changing world?

Shaping mobile futures provides opportunities to engage with these and other related questions. The following 36 sessions and workshops are open to submission of paper abstracts:

• No 1. Re-creating destinations as storyscapes
• No 2. Developing the concept of inclusive tourism
• No 3. Transformative tourism science for a sustainable world: Critical reflections on tourism science’s ontological and ethical foundations
• No 4. Circular Economy, Circularity Paradigm, and Local Space
• No 5. Tourism innovation for precarious times
• No 6. Capturing mobility: Visual methods in Tourism Studies
• No 7. Influence of Equipment and Technology on Outdoor Pursuits
• No 8. Urban tourism development: challenges and possibilities in the wake of Covid-19
• No 9. Celebrating proximity in tourism
• No 10. Entrepreneurship and Family Business: Dynamics and challenges in the European tourism sector
• No 11. Asian mobilities in a changing Arctic: theory and contexts
• No 12. Tourism and other land uses: Coexistence, potential conflicts, or opportunities for symbiotic relationships?
• No 13. Unveiling the intersection between tourism and volunteering in the industrialised world
• No 14. The importance of slow food and what it means for gastro tourism and slow travels
• No 15. Overtourism: Challenges and possibilities in precarious times
• No 16. Sustainable behaviour in tourism and hospitality
• No 17. Options and Needs for Wilderness Tourism
• No 18. Tourism Education Methodologies for Inclusion and Emancipation in Precarious Times
• No 19. Sustainable tourism in rural landscapes of the Anthropocene
• No 20. Towards smarter and more sustainable post-pandemic coastal tourism
• No 21. Migrant workers in tourism: seeking clarity, accepting complexity
• No 22. Tourism Economics and Management
• No 23. Uncertain futures? From overtourism to re-starting tourism
• No 24. Marketing and Service Management in Precarious Times
• No 25. Coping with the Arctification of Northern Tourism before, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic
• No 26. Methods measuring sustainability effects of tourism development for benefit of local communities and rural areas
• No 27. The new decade of tourism experiences – Everything has changed or has it?
• No 28. Tourism and hospitality work in precarious times
• No 29. City tourism development – challenges and possibilities of mobile future
• No 30. Staying with the trouble of cruise communities in a post-covid world
• No 31. Advancements in Event & Festival Research

• WS 01. Post-Pandemic Sustainable Tourism Management
• WS 02. Weirding Tourism: How to Conjure (in) Place and Summon Magickal Geographies
• WS 03. The Really Big Idea Sketchpad Approach to Shaping Mobile Futures in a COVID19 World: From Ideation to Execution
• WS 04. Philosophizing tourism in troubling times
• WS 05. Think globally – act locally – local materials as actors in developing doughnut (Raworth, 2012) destinations for sustainable tourism futures

• Other themes: Research topics that are not included in the sessions listed, relevant to the symposium theme

Abstract submission and deadline

To submit your abstract, select your session and click on abstract submission. Submit your abstract of 200-250 words in .docx format. The abstract must include:

• Name of author and any co-author(s)
• Contact details of corresponding author
• Title of abstract

Figures, tables, footnotes, endnotes or other references should not be included in the abstract.

Deadline for abstract submission is 15th of May 2021
Abstracts submitted will be subject to approval by the session organiser(s) and the decision will be sent by 10th June. After that, symposium registration will open. The registration deadline is 25th of August 2021.

If any questions arise, please contact Ása Marta Sveinsdóttir [asamarta@rmf.is] or Eyrún Jenný Bjarnadóttir [ejb@rmf.is]

On behalf of the organizing committee,
Guðrún Þóra Gunnarsdóttir, Icelandic Tourism Research Centre