Ramon Benedicto ALAMPAY, University of the Philippines, Philippines
Miguela MENA, University of the Philippines, Philippines
Regenerative tourism is an idea that has been proposed by various tourism thinkers on the general argument that "global tourism, as currently practiced, is underperforming, highly vulnerable and heading towards breakdown… [and therefore] no longer fit for purpose and needs to be replaced (Pollock, 2019).” With the onset of the coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic around the world, research interest has been growing for regenerative tourism as a necessary and alternative development approach to the envisioned New Normal for tourism destinations.
Though it might be a relatively new concept in many locations, regenerative tourism is a field of inquiry that connects to existing threads of research in other fields of study such as: sustainable development, regenerative design (C. Owen, 2005), regenerative agriculture, circular and alternative economies (Cave & Dredge, 2020), etc. We describe a program development design that weaves these interests into a multi-disciplinary platform for a collaborative regenerative tourism research program. Group process principles and techniques for facilitating the organic generation of research themes such as Open Space technology (H. Owen, 2008) and nominal group technique (Delbecq & Van De Ven, 1971 as cited in Albrecht, 2013) are adapted to a disciplinally-diverse group of researchers from the University of the Philippines. Participants from selected tourism communities and destinations in the Philippines are also invited to contribute more applied, policy, and outreach-oriented perspectives to consider.
The self-organized approach to problem-identification and decision-making allows for a tabula rasa planning process that starts without any predetermined research agenda nor structure. We report on the emergent clusters of research ideas and projects that result from the process, as well as the subsequent steps to organize the research clusters for an initial Regenerative Tourism Program.
Mots clés : regenerative tourism|research agenda|multi-disciplinary research|collaboration
A103513RA