Research group for Tourism Impacts on Society

The ambition of the Research group is to help professionals in tourism destination management choose, design and evaluate interventions that optimize the social and economic impacts of tourism, as experienced by inhabitants, the tourism workforce, businesses and visitors of destinations, ultimately building quality of life.

These impacts are experienced by inhabitants, workforce, businesses and visitors of destinations. Ideal are interventions that simultaneously improve the quality of experiences for visitors, the quality of life for inhabitants and the quality of work for people and businesses active in tourism

Examples of interventions are changes in the physical environment, such as creating new attractions, infrastructure or facilities or redeveloping existing ones. Another example involves the deployment of resources or measures (whether or not combined) to achieve the desired performance, for instance in the area of:

• Marketing, communication, storytelling, events
• Legal measures such as regulations, guidelines
• Financial incentives such as prices, taxes, subsidies
• Smart (IT) solutions
• Facilitating innovation and knowledge development
• The way the destination and its stakeholders are organised

As no two destinations are the same there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. We take a contextual approach and based on that advise stakeholders, such as government bodies, societal organisations and business representatives, on which interventions to use in order to improve social and economic impacts of tourism in their destination. Moreover, we help them measure the impacts of tourism and the effects of interventions.

The cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary research group consists out of:

•   Professor Jeroen Klijs
•   Ellen de Groot
•   Eugenio van Maanen
•   Ondrej Mitas
•   Jos van der Sterren
•   Rami Isaac
•   Simone Moretti
•   Jeroen Nawijn
•   Celiane Camargo-Borges

The Research group is firmly embedded in the research and educational programs of the Breda University of Applied Sciences and is based upon a belief in cooperation. This includes cooperation with places/destinations, other professorships, other research institutes, tourism entrepreneurs, etc.