Environmental Policy Group @WUR’s Post

🎉 Congratulations to Machiel Lamers on his inaugural lecture as Personal Professor of Tourism and Environmental Change at Wageningen University & Research. His research reveals a fundamental paradox: we travel to experience untouched nature, while our presence reshapes it. By studying tourism as a global system of movements — people, ships, emissions and rules — Machiel shows why governing tourism is more complex, and more urgent, than ever. From Antarctica to coral reefs, his work asks a crucial question: who takes responsibility for protecting the places we value most? 🎥 In this short video, Machiel shares how one moment between tourists and penguins led to a much bigger research agenda on governing tourism and environmental change. Join his lecture online tomorrow at 16:00 hours here: https://wur.yuja.nl/ Environmental Policy Group @WUR

🌍 From monitoring to real-world resilience During the Tourism4SDG Study Visit in Coimbra, Catherine Blanc from La Rochelle Agglo shared how her region is working to strengthen its indicators and monitoring tools to better evaluate tourism policies against sustainable development objectives, as exchanges in Coimbra brought these frameworks into a real-world context. The visit to the Schist Village of Cerdeira offered a striking example: while the surrounding landscape still bears the marks of recent and devastating wildfires, the village itself was preserved, illustrating how resilience can be built into tourism systems through targeted measures and local adaptation strategies—an increasingly relevant challenge across many regions in Europe. 🌱 🤝 By linking policy evaluation with on-the-ground realities, the visit showed how regions can better assess impacts, anticipate risks and adapt their tourism models to evolving environmental and territorial challenges. How is your region integrating climate risks into tourism policy and evaluation frameworks? And how can we better ensure both climate and tourism resilience? 💬 Learn more about Tourism4SDG, an Interreg Europe project: https://lnkd.in/g87ewNjv 🎥 Explore all our videos on our YouTube channel: https://lnkd.in/dQmhcMAE Jesús Rivas Rojo VVV Zuid Limburg Maike Aerts Ekonomikas ministrija/ Ministry of Economics Delphine Gaudart-Brunet Caroline Laborde catherine blanc La Rochelle Agglo Miia Maris Praks Opština Sokobanja Marija Zikic Nyíregyháza Megyei Jogú Város Önkormányzata Marshal Office of Lubelskie Voivodeship Maringlen Kurtaj Silvia Carvalho #Tourism4SDG #SustainableTourism #SDGs #SDG12 #TourismImpact #PolicyImpact #InterregEurope

More tourism isn’t always better tourism. The destinations that win long-term are the ones that protect what makes them worth visiting. In our latest Field Notes episode, Nate Wyeth unpacks regenerative tourism and how DMOs can think beyond volume. Watch now: https://hubs.li/Q04dMRkt0

Today at the PATA Youth Symposium 2026 in Pohang, we tackled one of the most urgent topics in our industry: Maritime Sustainability and Ocean Conservation. Key insights from our expert panel: • Jessie F. McComb (ADB) • Dong Gwang Son (Stay Hotel) • Jennifer Chun (Hawaii Tourism Authority) • Julinus Jeffery Jimit (Sabah Tourism Board) The takeaway? To build a resilient $4 trillion industry, the next generation of leaders must be the guardians of our oceans. #PATA2026 #Sustainability #OceanConservation #BlueEconomy #TravelIndustry #PATAAnnualSummit Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA)

Today at the PATA Youth Symposium 2026 in Pohang, we tackled one of the most urgent topics in our industry: Maritime Sustainability and Ocean Conservation. Key insights from our expert panel: • Jessie F. McComb (ADB) • Dong Gwang Son (Stay Hotel) • Jennifer Chun (Hawaii Tourism Authority) • Julinus Jeffery Jimit (Sabah Tourism Board) The takeaway? To build a resilient $4 trillion industry, the next generation of leaders must be the guardians of our oceans. #PATA2026 #Sustainability #OceanConservation #BlueEconomy #TravelIndustry #PATAAnnualSummit Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA)

🌿 Insights from the Izu Peninsula Ecotourism Master Plan: A Model for Sustainable Regional Management The Izu Peninsula is advancing an ecotourism framework that integrates its unique volcanic landscapes and diverse ecosystems with sustainable regional development. The master plan emphasizes cross‑municipal collaboration, scientific resource assessment, environmental monitoring, and the enhancement of high‑quality nature‑based experiences. These initiatives illustrate key competencies required of professional engineers: evidence‑based planning, stakeholder coordination, and long‑term sustainability management. The case demonstrates how natural assets can be conserved while supporting regional economic resilience through responsible tourism. 👉https://lnkd.in/gMUKxiEd #Ecotourism #SustainableTourism #RegionalDevelopment #NatureConservation #Biodiversity

🍃 Can tourists’ climate knowledge really impact their decision to use environmental best practices in tourism? The paper “The role of objective and subjective knowledge in tourists’ environmentally conscious travel decisions” by Daniel Pilgreen; Seung Jin Cho; Suiwen (Sharon) Zou, PhD; Paige P. Viren and published in Consumer Behavior in Tourism and Hospitality provides empirical insights into how what tourists actually know versus what they think they know influences their adoption of environmentally friendly practices while traveling. 🎯 NOT ALWAYS. Drawing on a large sample of early climate adopters (n = 752), the study reveals that overconfidence in climate knowledge and other cognitive biases resulting from misalignment between objective and subjective knowledge can actually reduce pro-environmental attitudes. 💡 A valuable contribution for researchers and practitioners seeking to promote more effective sustainable behavior in tourism. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/dpTe2_7a CBTH, Volume 20, Issue 1 #sustainabletourism #consumerbehavior #proenvironmentalbehavior Serena Volo Editor-in-Chief Hazel Goodes Commissioning Editor Emerald Publishing

Thanks, Ms.Adityaa Srivastava. I am very pleased to be invited to the session titled “Sustainable Agritourism Development in Taiwan.” In my presentation, I will explain, from the perspective of farm operators, how farms implement sustainable practices, and how the government and associations promote international markets through certification and verification systems. #GlobalAgritourismNetwork #Agritourism #LeisureFarm #LeisureAgriculturalZone

New book contract signed with Routledge, for Commodity-based Sustainable Tourism: Cinnamon Model and Global Application📚 #research #editedbook #SustinableTourism #CinnamonTourism Prof (Dr) D.A.C Suranga Silva Yasas Kulasekara Krishantha Ganeshan

This article examines the implications of the ways that various stakeholders legitimize their visions of a desirable future in Juneau, Alaska, a community and a cruise destination which lacks a comprehensive tourism plan but where governance is evolving due to the long-term confrontation between disputed visions, expectations, and management solutions. The paper contributes to the existing literature by connecting stakeholder views, five dimensions of legitimacy, trust, power, governance and destination path evolution. Robert Orttung Seleni Matus GRATET - Research Group on Territorial Analysis and Tourism Studies Universitat Rovira i Virgili