From 19 to 21 September, 2023 The European Tourism Research Institute (ETOUR) at Mid Sweden University hosted the annual Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research with the theme “Rethinking tourism for a sustainable future”. The symposium was held at the Mid Sweden University campus in Östersund, Sweden. Along with Patrick Brouder (Associate Professor at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, Canada) I was invited to deliver a keynote at the Symposium. My keynote aimed at situating the ‘digital turn’ in tourism.
The digitalization of tourism has been commonly celebrated, encouraged, and generally associated with notions of progress, efficiency, competitiveness and even ‘smartness’. Aside from the ongoing digital innovations developed by a dedicated tech industry, national governments, and intergovernmental organisations such as the European Commission have provided tourism entrepreneurs and businesses with ample resources to support their digital transformations, and to facilitate their integration into the “global digital value chain”. It is widely recognised that the Internet and new digital technologies have substantially reconfigured and restructured tourism economies, by increasing connection, visibility, and the revenues of many companies, and by creating new forms of sociality, work, creativity, and cultural exchange.
Yet, critical aspects into the sustainability of such celebrated ‘digital turn in tourism’ remain to be explored in depth. What is particularly overlooked in most optimistic accounts are the making, the maintenance and the costs of data that are central to the workings of these digital technologies, as are the material infrastructures that are needed to support them. These include fiber optic superhighways and data centres located in places with favourable temperatures for cooling, inexpensive energy, stable governments and tax incentives; conditions found, not unexpectedly, in Nordic countries.
In the keynote address, I paid heed to the materiality and situatedness of data and data infrastructures that underpin the digital turn in tourism. What, precisely, is the digital made of and where is it sourced? Who exactly profits from infinite data and how is its value reflected and circulated in tourism economies? What do we make of unfettered data growth in times of energy crises and climate catastrophe? In attending to these questions, the keynote proposed imperatives for the politics and transformations that are needed to pursue more sustainable and equitable digital tourism futures.
A video of the keynote can be found here:
The symposium provides a platform for academic debate and development in the field of tourism and hospitality research in the Nordic countries and in a wider European and global context. NORTHORS is closely linked to the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, which a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Taylor and Francis.
Many thanks in particular to Dimitri Ioannides and Robert Pettersson for the kind invitation to present and similarly to the ETOUR members for their impeccable organization of the Symposium. Looking forward to the next Symposium in Stavanger!