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Nordic Symposium in Tourism and Hospitality and Research - Call for session proposals

The 24th Nordic Symposium in Tourism and Hospitality and Research will be held in Reykjavík October 1st-3rd 2015. Symposium theme is: Responsible tourism?

In the seemingly fluid world of tourism people are invited to travel the globe and experience destinations as trouble free zones in which goals are achieved, dreams and wonders come true. People are offered to set aside everyday responsibilities momentarily whilst visiting different places, cultures and natures, be it for work or leisure purposes. However the environmental costs of travelling are becoming all too apparent during times of climate change. The demonstrable impact of tourism on the cultures and lives of locals have also been foregrounded for some time in tourism scholarship.

We invite sessions dealing with the possibilities of responsible tourism centred around the key question:

  • How can tourism be conceptualised as a responsible activity and how can tourists become attentive to their encounter with places, nature and cultures for their benefit and empowerment?

The 24th Nordic Symposium of Tourism and Hospitality Research invites tourism scholars to explore emerging themes of how travel industries can trace the contours of a travel imaginary grounded in the everyday practical and political realities of the destination’s natures and cultures once developing their products.

Following the question of the possibilities of responsible tourism we invite e.g. sessions that deal with;

• tourism and environmental responsibility
• ethical tourism development in relation to local empowerment and environmental protection
• responsible human resource management
• ethical tourism consumption discourses and subject formation
• the geographical imaginaries of consumption
• impacts and challenges of climate change and tourism
• community tourism
• collaborative consumption and co-creation of tourism
• responsible tourism operations, issues of safety and operational management
• local-global power dynamics
• politics of tourism development
• Diaspora and tourism behaviour
• responsible tourism futures
• tourism Eco labelling
• responsible tourism education

Please submit your session proposals (max 200 words) with title to edward@unak.is by 1st March 2015.

On behalf of the organising committee,
Edward H. Huijbens (University of Akureyri, Icelandic Tourism Research Centre)

Symposium’s website: http://24thnordicsymposium.rmf.is/