Centre for Sustainability, Tourism and Transport (CSTT)

The Centre for Sustainability, Tourism and Transport (CSTT) is dedicated to driving the transition to sustainable tourism and leisure mobility by reducing the climate footprint of these sectors.  At the heart of our strategy is the vision for a just tourism and leisure mobility system within planetary and societal boundaries. The CSTT envisions a tourism and leisure mobility system characterized by:

• Widespread and structural adoption of more sustainable transport modes, both for travelling to and within tourism destinations, and reduction of distances.
• Inclusivity, justice and well-being ensuring that the transition to sustainable mobility considers the needs of all stakeholders, at different geographical scales, from local communities to international tourists.
• Long-term economic sustainability, ensuring that tourism is capable of limiting its exposure and vulnerability to different climate risks and impacts.  

Our mission is to create meaningful change through research, consultancy and education to support public authorities, industries, and society in embracing sustainable tourism and leisure mobility practices. By fostering active engagement and dialogue among stakeholders, CSTT seeks to build a shared understanding of what sustainable tourism and leisure mobility can look like and how it can be achieved.

To translate our vision into action, we have developed a multi-year research program organized around three interrelated research pillars:

• Generating knowledge, we will contribute to reimagining alternative futures for sustainable tourism and leisure mobility.
• We will help navigating the tourism and leisure mobility transition by addressing existing tensions and paradoxes, and by providing methodological tools to turn unproductive debates into constructive discussions.
• We will participate in the transformation of the tourism and leisure mobility system through targeted, evidence-based interventions at various geographical scales and transport modalities, guiding the sector towards a more sustainable future.

A set of research priorities operationalizes these pillars, providing concrete focus areas for the upcoming years:

• Just and inclusive tourism and leisure mobility: This research line examines tourism and leisure mobility from a social science perspective, ensuring that these systems are both environmentally sustainable and socially just. It addresses existing inequalities, accessibility, affordability, and climate justice, working on inclusive and equitable frameworks for sustainable tourism and leisure mobility.
• Climate impacts and risks in tourism: This research line investigates the impacts of climate change on tourism in order to gain a deeper understanding of how climate dynamics affect the sector. Next, it works on development and application of climate risk assessment tools to help industry to understand, measure, and minimize risks, supporting a transition toward more sustainable tourism and leisure mobility.
• Measuring and understanding tourism and leisure carbon footprint:This research line focuses on measuring tourism and leisure carbon footprint to guide emission reduction strategies. It explores key drivers of emissions and works on further advancement and adoption of carbon footprint measurement.
• Climate obstruction in tourism and leisure mobility: This research line analyses power relations and barriers to climate action while developing tools and frameworks to guide more sustainable tourism and leisure mobility policies and practices
• Leisure and tourism urban and rural mobility: This research line applies an interdisciplinary approach to support tourism and mobility stakeholders in advancing sustainable tourism and leisure mobility to day attraction, events, nature areas and other tourism and leisure hotspots in urban, peri-urban and rural areas.
• Systems approach to tourism and leisure mobility transition: This research line works on the development of a comprehensive framework for sustainable tourism and leisure mobility transformation, that addresses the complex interactions between transport modes, geographies, stakeholder interests, policies and destinations, etc to guide evidence-based interventions.

The research team:

•    Professor Nina Nesterova
•    Harald Buijtendijk
•    Erdinç Çakmak
•    Eke Eijgelaar
•    Ivar Neelis
•    Sjors Martens
•    Elisa van den Heuvel