Until the recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the growth of tourism had confronted many destinations with policy decisions that had impacted regional ecosystems and the quality of life of their resident population. To counter the threats driven by dominant tourism growth models, a number of tourism scholars have called for revisiting the philosophical foundation upon which tourism activities are developed. Informed by debates in philosophy and the wider social sciences, including tourism scholarship, this conceptual paper, therefore, suggests an alternative governance paradigm for tourism destinations, which is articulated in four propositions that reflect a new materialist perspective. These propositions are a monist post-anthropocentric ontology, a participatory epistemology, resilient forms of tourism and participation as methodologies, and social eudaimonia as societal value. The core argument presented in this paper is that the Anthropocene requires tourism destinations to espouse alternative governance approaches drawing from ideas emerging from new materialist scholarship.
SmartCulTour will propose and validate innovative interventions directed at sustainable cultural tourism that supports the development of European regions rich of tangible and intangible cultural assets.The project will focus on:. Concepts: By developing new definitions of (sustainable) cultural tourism, cultural tourism destinations, sustainable development, and resilience;• Measurement: By identifying and testing a framework of sustainability and resilience indicators and a Decision Support System for measuring and monitoring cultural tourism and its impacts;• Procedure: By testing and presenting innovative and creative tools for stakeholder engagement, particularly art-based methods, a serious game and service design;• Outcome: By recognizing state-of-the-art and innovative cultural tourism interventions through existing case studies and by trialling specific interventions within six community-led Living Labs.Partners:KU Leuven (Belgium), University of Split (Croatia), MODUL University Vienna (Austria), University of Lapland (Finland), Ca’Foscari Università di Venezia (Italy), UNESCO (France), CIHEAM-IAMZ (Spain), Toerisme Vlaanderen (Belgium), Quantitas (Italy)
