The circular economy and its implementation is one of the hottest global topics today, aiming to achieve 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 the value chain is still limited. In academia, although it is experiencing growing interest, this topic 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 must be answered.

For this reason, the program proposed for this seminar will start with the presentation of a research agenda detailing the major challenges to be addressed, inspired by the article published in the Tourism and Hospitality Research journal in 2024 by Lucia Tomassini et al., entitled “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 for the ongoing work that the speaker has been conducting. Finally, the model of human circular tourism elaborated by Francesca Nocca et al., as discussed in a couple of articles issued in the Sustainability journal in 2022 and 2023, acts as inspiration for not losing the human focus of the abovementioned transition towards identifying efficient environmental policies in the tourism sector. Its title is “The implementation of the human circular tourism model: which operational tools?”

In summary, much information on which those interested in this increasingly relevant domain must reflect will be presented at this seminar.

Keywords: sustainable tourism; circular tourism management; industrial symbiosis; smart tourism; circularity in tourism; tourism circular economy
Date: 13 May 2025 11:00 a.m. CEST | 5:00 p.m. CST Asia | 7:00 p.m. AEST
Webinar ID: 899 4343 1837

Register now for free!

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email detailing how to join the webinar. Registrations with academic institutional email addresses will be prioritized.

Unable to attend? Register anyway and we will let you know when the recording is available to view.

• Dr. Alfonso Vargas-Sánchez, Andalusian Academy of Regional Science, Spain; University of the Algarve, Faculty of Economics, Portugal;
• Dr. Lucia Tomassini, Hotel Management School Leeuwarden of NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Leeuwarden, the Netherlands;
• Dr. Flemming Sørensen, Department of Social Sciences and Business at Roskilde University, Denmark;
• Dr. Francesca Nocca, Department of Architecture, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy;
• Dr. Martina Bosone, Department of Architecture, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy.