Sustainability Webinar | Circular Economy in the Tourism Sector
Sustainability Webinar | Circular Economy in the Tourism Sector
Part of the Sustainability Webinar series
13 May 2025
Sustainable Tourism, Circular Tourism Management, Industrial Symbiosis, Smart Tourism, Circularity in Tourism, Tourism Circular Economy
Welcome from the Chair
The circular economy and its implementation is one of the hottest global topics today, aiming to make progress in environmental sustainability, and the tourism industry is not an exception. In service activities, such as tourism, the level of awareness and knowledge among operators in its value chain is still limited. In academia, although it is experiencing growing interest, it is still underexplored.
The complexities and multi- and inter-disciplinarity linked to the current transition from the linear economy, of which we are heirs, to the new paradigm of the circular economy (or circular tourism) raise many research questions that require elucidating.
For this reason, the program proposed for this seminar will start with the presentation of a research agenda with major challenges to be addressed, inspired by the article published in the Tourism and Hospitality Research journal in 2024 by Lucia Tomassini et al., titled “Circular economy in tourism and hospitality: A micro-meso-macro framework for interdisciplinary research”. The second speech will highlight the discussion on which kind of practices are aligned with circular tourism: “Practice Theory and Innovation for a Circular Economy in Tourism”; in this case, the article co-authored by Flemming Sørensen (2020), titled “Tourist practices in the circular economy. Annals of Tourism Research, 85: 103027” could be considered the starting point of the ongoing work in this field that the speaker has been conducting. Finally, the model of human circular tourism elaborated by Francesca Nocca et al., published in a couple of articles in the Sustainability journal in 2022 and 2023, acts as inspiration for not losing the human focus of the abovementioned transition towards the identification of efficient environmental policies in the tourism sector. Its title is “The implementation of the human circular tourism model: which operational tools?”
In summary, there is much information for the shared reflection for those interested in this increasingly relevant domain.
Date: 13 May 2025
Time: 11:00 am CEST | 5:00 pm CST Asia | 7:00 pm AEST
Webinar ID: 899 4343 1837
Webinar Secretariat: journal.webinar@mdpi.com
Registration
This is a FREE webinar. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information on how to join the webinar. Registrations with academic institutional email addresses will be prioritized.
Certificates of attendance will be delivered to those who attend the live webinar.
Can’t attend? Register anyway and we’ll let you know when the recording is available to watch.
Event Chair
Andalusian Academy of Regional Science, Spain,
University of the Algarve, Faculty of Economics, Portugal
Chair Introduction
Alfonso Vargas-Sánchez is a Full Professor of Business Administration who specialized in Strategic Management and Tourism Management, with extensive academic experience in higher education institutions around the world. He has led the Iberian Circle of Business Economics (a network of border Spanish and Portuguese universities) for 10 years and has been the founder and editor-in-chief of “Enlightening Tourism: A Pathmaking Journal” for 12 years, listed in Scopus. He is a Spanish researcher on tourism and is in the ranking of the world’s top 2% scientists (Stanford University, 2022, 2023, 2024). He is also in the top 0.5% worldwide in the field of tourism (ScholarGPS, 2022, 2023, 2024). More at: https://www.uhu.es/alfonso_vargas/06-index-ingles.htm https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=ExkrNPEAAAAJ&hl=es
Keynote Speakers
Hotel Management School Leeuwarden of NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Leeuwarden, the Netherlands
Circular economy in tourism and hospitality: A micro-meso-macro framework for inter-disciplinary research
Lucia Tomassini is equipped with a diverse academic background spanning architecture, urban planning, and a MSc in Urban Development and Reconstruction in Developing Countries, complemented by a PhD in Events, Tourism, and Hospitality from Leeds Beckett University (UK). She currently holds the position of Senior Research Lecturer in Sustainability in Hospitality & Tourism at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on cutting-edge areas within a more-than-human society, such as the circular economy and circularity in the physical and sociological space of tourism, leisure, and hospitality; post-human approaches to animals, animal mobility, and the animal gaze within human societies; the role of alternative accommodations and food and culinary traditions for meaningful experiences and social inclusiveness; and the interplay between mobility trends, spatial theories, and cultural geographies with regard to tourism and leisure. More at: https://www.nhlstenden.com/en/research/lucia-tomassini https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9660-966X
Department of Social Sciences and Business at Roskilde University, Denmark
Practice Theory and Innovation for a Circular Economy in Tourism
Flemming Sørensen is a Professor (WSR) at Roskilde University, Denmark. His research focuses on tourism innovation, with a particular emphasis on the innovation processes of tourism companies. Theoretically, his work explores the role of networks, entrepreneurship, practices, user interaction, and employee participation in fostering innovation and driving value creation. This research is related to a range of themes, including experience innovation, sustainability, and the circular economy, as well as tourist and employee practices and destination development. His research approach is predominantly collaborative, practice-oriented, and development-focused, emphasizing close collaboration with companies and organizations. More at: https://forskning.ruc.dk/en/persons/flemmiso https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=98oLy2cAAAAJ&hl=el
The implementation of the human circular tourism model: which operational tools?
Francesca Nocca is an architect and researcher in environmental economics and evaluation in the Department of Architecture at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. From April 2024 onwards, she has been conducting research at the Department of Management in the Built Environment—TU Delft. From 2018 to 2020, she was a post-doc researcher at DiARC as part of the “Metropolitan Cities: Economic-Territorial Strategies, Financial Constraints, and Circular Regeneration” PRIN project. In 2017, she obtained her Ph.D. in Architecture with a specific curriculum in urban planning and evaluation. Since 2014, she has been conducting research at the International Research Laboratory on the Creative and Sustainable City (DiARC). She has been invited as a speaker at many national and international conferences. She has also been a scientific member of several national and international conferences, including events as part of World Cities Day and World Habitat Day promoted by UN Habitat, United Nations. She is the author of many international scientific publications. She is a member of ICOMOS, ISCEC-ICOMOS, SIEV, and CESET. More at: https://www.docenti.unina.it/francesca.nocca https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3624-4536
The implementation of the human circular tourism model: which operational tools?
Martina Bosone is an architect and researcher in environmental economics and evaluation at the Department of Architecture of the University of Naples Federico II (Italy) and has a PhD in “Sustainable Technologies, Recovery and Representation of Architecture and the Environment” from the same university. She conducted her research activity in projects of national (PRIN) and European (Horizon2020) relevance, focusing on the elaboration of innovative methods and evaluation tools on the topics of the functional reuse and regeneration of cultural and landscape heritage in the perspective of the circular economy, sustainable cultural tourism, and shared management of cultural heritage as a common good. Since 2015, she has been a full-time researcher at the Laboratory of Research on Creative and Sustainable Cities (Lead Partner UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign; Lead of UN Habitat Universities Urban Regeneration HUB). Since 2020, she has been the co-coordinator of the National Scientific Committee ISCEC–ICOMOS, Italy. She is a member of national and international organizations for the protection and enhancement of cultural and landscape heritage, namely ICOMOS Italia, ICOMOS–ISCEC, FRH, SITdA, AAA, ARPSES, and AIGU. She has been invited as a speaker at Italian and international conferences and is the author of numerous publications in national and international peer-reviewed scientific journals indexed in ISI WoS/Scopus, some of which she has collaborated on as a member of the Editorial Board and as a referee. More at: https://www.docenti.unina.it/martina.bosone https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8478-5906
Programme
| Speaker/Presentation | CEST (Europe) | CST (Asia) |
|---|---|---|
|
Dr. Alfonso Vargas-Sánchez Chair Introduction |
11:00–11:10 am | 5:00–5:10 pm |
|
Dr. Lucia Tomassini Circular Economy in Tourism and Hospitality: A Micro-Meso-Macro Framework for Inter-Disciplinary Research |
11:10–11:30 am | 5:10–5:30 pm |
|
Dr. Flemming Sørensen Practice Theory and Innovation for a Circular Economy in Tourism |
11:30–11:50 am | 5:30–5:50 pm |
|
Dr. Francesca Nocca & Dr. Martina Bosone The Implementation of the Human Circular Tourism Model: Which Operational Tools? |
11:50 am–12:10 pm | 5:50–6:10 pm |
| Q&A | 12:10–12:25 pm | 6:10–6:25 pm |
|
Dr. Alfonso Vargas-Sánchez Closing of Webinar |
12:25–12:30 pm | 6:25–6:30 pm |
Sponsors and Partners
Organizers
