Sustainable Tourism Colloquium

The sustainable tourism colloquium has four main goals:

• Deepen knowledge and understanding related to sustainability and international tourism, specific in the context of resilience and mountain livelihoods
• Acquaint students with self-directed and meta-cognitive learning of professional, instrumental and social skills relevant for sustainability leadership, in an experiential outdoor setting
• Engage in a transdisciplinary sustainability research project
• Develop communication and media competence to tell narratives of resilience and sustainability as a preparation for a major international conference

The colloquium is organized in an introductionary seminar followed by a field trip to the Italian Piedmont mountains and the developing site of the MonViso Institute.

In the introductionary seminar, students will get an overview on most recent advances in transdisciplinary sustainability science, and its relation with tourism. Students learn about relevant research tools, i.e. network analysis and transition approaches on community resilience of social-ecological systems to various types of change. Sustainable tourism, permaculture/agro-forestry, mobility, architecture, renewable energy and “Alpine Urbanism” are examples for specific topics to be introduced as a preparation for the field trip. The field trip to the community of Ostana (Piedmont) will be discussed and organized, while students are asked to take over specific organizational and preparatory tasks for that trip (such as food shopping/cooking, media preparation, literature reading,…).

As an individual, graded preparation, students are asked to deliver a case study description on this project of one page A4 upon arrival in Ostana.

Once in Ostana, students will get to know the place and understand the place-based challenge of sustainability, tourism and mobility. The course will prepare and execute a field experiment with tourists, offering the service of a small bus/Navette for leaving the private cars at the entry of Ostana, and distributing questionnaires. If the weather is fair, one can expect between 100-300 cars on a Sunday, and these visitors are to be convinced to participate in the experiment.

There certainly is time to explore the surroundings, go for hikes, have an open fire with a bbq and such alike.

Students will engage in a design thinking workshop to find alternative mobility solutions for Ostana. Finaly, students will prepare a study report in both English and Italian language to hand over to the community and to prepare for a scientific publication.