Jasper Heslinga

Businesses have a crucial role to play in addressing societal challenges, including that of climate change. Facilitating the important role of these actors is one of the cornerstones of developing Conscious Destinations. Theory on transition and regenerative business has been fruitful in demonstrating the societal shifts we must engage in to tackle climate change, but are limited in their application to business practice. Conversely, traditional business models provide little to no room to consider the positioning of a business within its socio-ecological system or to acknowledge impact beyond the walls of the organisation. By leveraging the notion of ‘business purpose’ and the embeddedness of an organisation in the wider socio-ecological system, the Business Purpose Canvas is a tool that enables organisational stakeholders to evaluate current business practices and identify opportunities to redesign business and business models in ways that foster regenerative business practice in nature-based tourism.

Purpose: The purpose of this viewpoint paper is to show practical post COVID-19 observations as lessons for the future of tourism destination management and help inspire the tourism industry and academic community.Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on observations by, and discussions among, both international and Indonesian tourism experts and relate to the case of the famous UNESCO World heritage site, the Borobudur temple, in Indonesia.Findings: As a result, the authors observed the following measures that have been taken by the local authorities; setting limits to the amount of visitors, increase the visitor area, provide guided tours only, work with price mechanism, mitigate the physical impacts of visits and involve the local community in the value chain. The paper shows that the COVID pandemic has unintentionally created urgency and an opportunity for the local authorities to deal with already ongoing and structural overtourism related issues. This demonstrated that a lockdown was needed to get out of a lock-in.Originality/value: This paper fits in the ongoing debate on the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism sector. As it provides a practical case, the values of this paper lie in bridging the gap between conceptual contributions to the debate and practical observations. Also many links with the continuation of the overtourism debate are made.

This paper presents a diagnostics tool that we refer to as a ‘governance scan’ and discusses how this tool can contribute to improving governance systems of National Parks. This governance scan combines an analytical framework and an approach to have better understanding of these governance systems. Understanding how National Parks are managed is crucial to achieve improvements and steer towards more sustainable future situations. Governance systems are a fundamental aspect of this, being understood as “associational networks of public, private, civil society actors and how they engage in the making, setting and implementation of rules at various geographical scales”. How these systems are organized and function in practice can greatly shape conservation and development outcomes and hence future states of National Parks. The purpose of this paper is to; (1) elaborate on how this scan is rooted in the literature to explain its theoretical foundation and (2) step-by-step instruct how it is made applicable to use in practice. As an illustrative example, we discuss lessons learned from the application of the governance scan in the real-life context of the recently established ‘New Land’ National Park, located in The Netherlands. We conclude that the scan works as a diagnostics tool, to provide an overview of governance systems in place, facilitate knowledge transfer and discussions among different stakeholders, and set priorities in decision-making processes.

The COVID-19 virus and the measures taken to prevent its spread have had enormous impact on society, and specifically on people’s leisure behaviour in the Netherlands. The Dutch government implemented a so-called “intelligent lockdown” mid-March 2020. This constituted a partial closing of the economy, particularly those locations and businesses where social distancing could not be practiced. By July of 2020, many restrictions had already been lifted, but the concept of the “1.5 meter society” was retained, thus still prohibiting large-scale gatherings such as festivals, and severely limiting the capacity of leisure venues. During the lockdown period, people spent more leisure time at home and with their family. This caused a spike in the popularity of social media-related leisure, gaming, television (especially streaming services), but also a revaluing of more “traditional” forms of leisure. Since many leisure facilities were closed, self-organized outdoor leisure activities such as hiking, running, and cycling became even more popular. The psychological impact included heightened stress, anxiety, and confusion. The economic impact is expected to be significant, but the leisure sector is showing its resilience by figuring out new ways of continuing operations.

To make regions more resilient, a useful idea is that of synergy between tourism and landscape (i.e., a win-win situation). To help policymakers manage for synergy, we provide practical recommendations. Using the case of Terschelling (the Netherlands), an island that is part of the UNESCO World Heritage listed Wadden Sea, we analyzed how policy and public opinion have been changing, and how multilevel governance is arranged. We recommend that: policymakers seek to understand the historical institutional context of a region; strive for integrated policy aimed at synergetic interactions; gain an overview of all stakeholders in the decision-making process; include all stakeholders; develop a shared story; co-create a clear vision for the future; but also allow flexibility in local implementation; and dare to experiment. Overall, we conclude that synergy is a promising concept that requires a different approach to decision-making.

In tourism, the concept of “benefit-sharing” refers to the idea that the benefits arising from tourism should be distributed across a wide range of stakeholders. We argue that the development of synergetic interactions between stakeholders involved in governance processes is a prerequisite for effective benefit-sharing from tourism in protected areas. Our stakeholder analysis of the actors with an interest in the island of Terschelling in the northern Netherlands revealed how relationships between stakeholders enable and/or constrain the sharing of benefits from tourism. Our analysis helped to understand the governance arrangements pertaining to the management of tourism in protected areas. We ascertained that the national forest management agency (Staatsbosbeheer), a large landowner on the island, is highly influential, but nevertheless often found it difficult to gain local support for its activities. The local government was also an important stakeholder, but was considered to sometimes constrain the development of tourism and thus limit the potential for benefit-sharing. Effective communication, good collaboration with stakeholders, and an attitude of openness were identified as being important preconditions for developing synergistic interactions between stakeholders.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to look at the potential synergies between tourism and landscapes and examine the potential contribution of tourism to build social-ecological resilience in the Dutch Wadden.Design/methodology/approach: The authors reveal how a social-ecological systems perspective can be used to conceptualize the Wadden as a coupled and dynamic system. This paper is a conceptual analysis that applies this approach to the Dutch Wadden. The data used for the inquiry primarily comes from a literature review.Findings: The authors argue that the social-ecological systems perspective is a useful approach and could be used to improve the governance of multi-functional socio-ecological systems in coastal areas. Opportunities for synergies between tourism and landscapes have been overlooked. The authors consider that tourism and nature protection are potentially compatible and that the synergies should be identified.Research limitations/implications: This paper is only a conceptual application rather than an empirical case study. Further research to actually apply the methodology is needed.Practical implications: Managers of protected areas should consider applying a social-ecological systems approach.Social implications: The views of a wide variety of stakeholders should be considered in landscape planning.Originality/value: The value of this paper lies in the articulation of the social-ecological systems perspective as a way to identify and understand the complex interactions between tourism and landscape, and the potential synergies between them.