VERNE session on sustainable business models has been selected for Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research.
The VERNE project is delighted to announce that its proposed session, “Sustainable Business Models in Tourism and Hospitality: Circularity, Resilience, Governance and Impact”, has been accepted as part of the programme for the 34th Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research (NS34) in Reykjavík, Iceland, 6–8 October 2026.
About the session
The session is organised by Dr Kelsey M. Johansen (Natural Resources Institute Finland), Assoc. Prof. Aylin Poroy Arsoy (Bursa Uludag University) and Dr Juanita Blue (Atlantic Technological University). The session seeks to bring together cutting-edge work on how tourism and hospitality businesses can move beyond growth-at-all-costs towards more just, resilient and regenerative futures.
Drawing on critical debates around circular economy transitions, regenerative tourism, impact management and post-growth thinking, the session explores how sustainable, circular and regenerative business models can be designed, adapted and governed across destinations, hospitality providers and wider experience networks. It explicitly looks beyond a narrow “destination-only” lens to include accommodation, food and beverage, cultural and creative enterprises, nature-based operators, transport actors and hybrid public–private governance arrangements that jointly shape tourism experiences and their impacts.
Key themes
Contributions are invited that engage with tourism and hospitality business models as systems of value creation, delivery and capture operating across multiple stakeholders and scales. Indicative themes include:
- Circularity and resource stewardship (energy, water, food systems, waste, procurement and material flows across destinations and supply chains).
- Regenerative and nature-positive tourism that enhances ecological integrity, cultural vitality and community wellbeing.
- Resilience and adaptive capacity in the face of climate risks, crises, labour shortages and geopolitical uncertainty.
- Governance, policy and institutional innovation enabling sustainable and regenerative business model change.
- Impact measurement and performance assessment, including integration of financial and non-financial indicators into decision-making and governance.
- Equity, diversity and inclusion in tourism and hospitality organisations and business models.
- Digitalisation and AI for improved inclusivity, accessibility, transparency and impact management.
- Degrowth and post-growth perspectives prioritising sufficiency, quality of experience and community benefit over volume growth.
The session welcomes conceptual, empirical and methodological contributions informed by diverse theoretical lenses (e.g. sustainable and circular business models, regenerative economics, resilience theory, institutional theory, political economy, risk management, and critical hospitality and tourism studies). Work in progress is also very welcome.
Who can submit and how
The session is open to academics, early-career researchers, doctoral candidates and practitioners working on sustainable, circular and regenerative tourism and hospitality systems in Europe and internationally. All abstracts for this session must be submitted through the official NS34 online system and will be peer reviewed according to the symposium’s scientific criteria.
Our session call is now live on the Nordic Symposium website:
General session list: NS34 Sessions | Icelandic Tourism Research Centre – https://www.rmf.is/en/moya/page/ns34-sessions
Our session: NS34 Session 20 | Icelandic Tourism Research Centre – https://www.rmf.is/en/moya/page/ns34-session-20
Full details on submission guidelines, deadlines and review procedures are available via the official conference website. We warmly encourage colleagues working on circular, resilient and regenerative tourism and hospitality business models to submit their abstracts and join us in Reykjavík for this important conversation.