The Nordic Regenerative tourism podcast - episode 05
[Music] welcome to the last snic episode in this Iceland tourism cluster podcast Our Guest today is Dr Jessica Aquino who is an associate professor at the hola University in Iceland and she's also the leader of the noric academic group where I'm also part of myself nice to have you Jessica yeah thanks for inviting me Jessica do you want to start by telling a few words about yourself just you know a few sentences about your background your career your path so we get to know you a little bit okay A few sentences about all that I think it'd be kind of hard so I'll do my best to end in this show so um I am an associate professor at holler University and I've been here I've moved to Iceland about eight years ago since the 2016 um so I have a very interdisciplinary background um my undergraduates in conservation biology um which is now called sustainability and my masters is in tourism Recreation studies um and I looked more at like what inclusive um uh like Recreation inclusion but and then my my PhD is in Community Resources and development but looking more at communities and inclusion and of things how things affect communities in general and so hopefully that's in a nutshell yeah I think so I mean of course also I know you very well so yeah and Jessica we have both been part of this snic project from the very beginning and uh it was super fun to discover this regenerative tourism Paradigm which was super new together with you and um like what does it mean for you to be part of the snic project or maybe how was it in the beginning what did you think when you were approach to be part of noreg and how does this fit into your own research Focus yeah than that I was very well I was very happy to be approached by olier to to join the the nor Edge project um and I had started hearing more about what regenerative tourism was and I wasn't at first I was very critical of it I I was worried that um if uh because we're very much focused on sustainability I was very worried that if we focus you know all on this New Concept that they might push us away from sustainability and all the work that we've been working there but um after working in nor I I discovered that there is a lot of links to the work that I've been doing with regenerative and within as it as a concept um so I was I think very fortunate to be part of this group because it um it ties very nicely with all the the research and the work that I've been doing with um Community Development and inclusion um learnings and networks and mobilities and sustainability um I hope that well with if I continue working with rine of Tourism that'll be able to contribute um and help um you know help develop it and have it um as more of a known concept than than than where it is now and it's very I mean it's starting to become very well known I think the past gosh after covid it was it kind of just rather exploded now you see regenerative tourism or regenerative everywhere um and so I think now our work in the future is more focusing on um establishing what the concept is so that it's not so muddled so it's the people actually understand what what it is and can um participate in regenerative being I think our role probably now is to be careful that regenerative tourism doesn't just become another bus word like it happened with sustainable tourism yeah and I I mean I I still I don't believe that sustainable tourism is a buzzword but I think a lot of people use it as a buzzword I think that um like with the sustainable development goals and and what people have been trying to do keep with sustainability but I think that there just needs to be um a different concept on how we approach sustainability and I feel that regenerative has this concept because it's it's it does push Beyond sustainability it looks at how do we become you know how we become more reciprocal how do we um give back to the communities that have given so much to us and how do we be more conscious you know conscious Travelers but there's still issues within tourism because we we know that um Travelers are still not sustainable and and many Travelers don't even have may not even heard of the this concept of regenerative so it's um I like how with Norge we focused on we did focus on businesses and um dmos and um getting the the concept and the understanding of how to become more regenerative and and in align that with sustainability so I think that has helped a lot with within the Nordic concept of regenerative tourism MH uh Jessica you mentioned before that there are links like between your former research or your research focus and regenerative tourism that you figured this out during noric what kind of links do you mean do you have examples because you're focusing a lot on Community Development and Community weing yeah so I I think who made those links first was all of ear because when I remember having a meeting with her when she approached me about the project and she said that oh you know she had read my work with volunteer tourism and um and then I think because she's very um she sees citizen science as um could be a tool for regenerative uh regenerative tourism and through the work with the research that uni Magdalena that we've been doing we saw we do see some links with that with regenerative tourism um and so volunteer tourism is um in that area we're looking more at like how um with my research was more about how volunteers who work at nonprofit um organizations within communities are are affecting their Community Development projects and uh when I started working more with regenerative tourism with norch I saw that there was a lot of things that they were doing that it was in the realm of Community Development so in in Community Development it's it's more than just like developing resources it's more about looking at how can communities um attain their goals for either the embedment of their communities or to make things to make change and a lot of that takes networks and learning and mobility and um B basically that's what we were doing with norid is that uh the they were creating a network and we were learning together about what regenerative tourism is and what that would look like and then trying to implement that into into practice and that implementation was the mobility part so it it just kind of that's why I felt like it was very um fortunate for me to um be involved with nor because it just aligns so closely with already the research that I've been doing and and the the some of the um the work I've already done in the past and of bringing the parts together right yeah that it just connected it connected the dots really well and I think now um the work that I'm I'm doing is still trying to get you know like um I would like to develop more tools of how you know um Community groups can be become more mobile and and um you know and focus on like what are the some of the tools with networks and and with the we wrote a book chapter together about um the the citizen science pilot project that we did in in selness National um in selness uh looked at that because we do have somebody that is is very much of a mobilizer right she's get she gets people together and um we had these meetings and we learned about what what we wanted to do with the project and how you know to put it together and so from that that led to developing some tools you know of how we could potentially use uh citizen science as a as a tool for regenerative tourism um but also just seeing how communities mobilize to be able to make that change and so and that change is trying to make tourism more um more sustainable and and just just better for the communities yeah and also just like finally focusing on the local communities that they actually play a key role in tourism development I think that's also like already a big achievement yeah yeah definitely and I think even with the I mean some of the research that you do Magdalena with um lifestyle and entrepreneurs that um at least in what we see here in Iceland um many and we work a lot in the the countryside many of the the entrepreneurs here in the countrys side you know start their business because they they like what they do but they also want to contribute to their community because you know they see a service that is needed and they they want to because they live in their communities they want to make sure that their business is not harming you know the communities or the environment and so oftentimes you see those you know those entrepreneurs really wanting to learn how to make their businesses better and it it does when um when you run it in this manner of being you know more regenerative then it's it does make better business sense right you you feel better about your business you also feel better about yourself as an entrepreneur and you feel better about like the kind of like the things that you're leaving uh or you know that are being left behind within the community yeah exactly exactly and I think that's so important that we also shed light on that from the academic point of view and you mentioned Publications before Jessica and we are talking about the academic group and uh last year some of the members of the academic group and among them were also you and me mainly even uh we took a great initiative to get acad Publications out because like we said this is so important that we are writing about what we are doing so we actually have the evidence out there uh we had a book chapter where we introduced noric as a pilot project then I think we had a paper where we looked into regenerative tourism under the lens of Community Development and the lifestyle entrepreneurs can you tell a little bit about these Publications that we threw out especially last year and why you think they are so important yeah well I hope they are I hope that that that people who read them um that it's that it's going to kind of highlight the work that we've been doing with nor and kind of describe where we think that um or from the from the work that we've been doing with nor what the group feels where tourism should be going because it was a very collaborative effort um one of the book chapters we talked about nor talked about how developing this network but beyond developing the network that also developing or coming to an agreement of what the concept of regenerative tourism that looks like in the Nordic was a very collaborative effort and I think it now it should be more um should be more inclusive right it should be more because we looked at just particularly our group so um it's a Nordic perspective but from our group from nor but it may not be a Nordic perspective you know like a whole region so it I think we need to kind of like um still connect with other academics and other practitioners that are working Within the realm of regenerative tourism and and try to understand that concept more as a whole um but that's why it's really great that this you know group started that because it's kind of felt like it was the foothold it was the the momentum that started this movement right um and the paper that we wrote together with Frances um we talked about um Community Development within regenerative tourism and um and social entrepreneurs but we just was basically basically just that about trying to show kind of highlight what Community Development is um because I think a lot of times people may have a misconception of what Community Development is because it it is all it is about inclusion and making communities better and and making them or helping them become more resilient and I saw that with uh regenerative tourism and um or at Le yeah with the concept with regenerative so we wrote this paper that looked at um regenerative tourism Community Development and um focusing on uh Lifestyles uh lifestyle entrepreneurs and um it was interesting to see because you do again like you know I said before that it's um people who you know work and live in the community really do want to make um their communities better they they want to be you know good citizens in that sense but um oftentimes when you work in a service industry like tourism they they just want to help you know provide better services to their to the community but also to visitors that are coming but do you think that we need more case studies because you were talking a lot now that the tourism businesses want to make that businesses more sustainable they want to learn about like what can can they do do you think it would be more beneficial if we would add more case studies to our research and throw that down yeah yeah definitely because I I I think right now what the view that we have is very much focused on the entrepreneurs and the people that worked with within this project right um so it's a very I mean it's a very small sample if you think about it if you look at Nordic regionally and geographically as a whole is quite big and um so we do need more case studies to see uh what um you know what are those businesses doing for regenerative and and what does it would generative mean to them um so I I we the more that we know about it the more that we study about it I think we can give us a better understanding of this this concept of regenerative tourism especially since we call it you know the Nordic concept of regenerative tour tourism there are many like social groups that aren't included yet because our our group was so small but like looking at um indigenous perspectives of regenerative tourism and looking at other ethical concepts of regenerative and and um what um within tourism itself how do we you know how do we Empower local communities to make their you know make sustainable um development for their tourism uh tourism development and how do we like how do we connect other more entrepreneurs to others to be able to learn from each other right to because to and to make those adaptions because sometimes something may work in one community and it may not work in another Community right so it's like it's it'd be really interesting to hear those voices and see what you know what are they doing to make things more sustainable and and to make their the communities more resilient mhm feels like there are so many best practice examples of regenerative tourism spread all over the world and it seems like we should just bring them somehow together right yeah yeah definitely and I know it's it can be a little bit more complicated in the way that we're making it sound because there is sometimes some disconnect between um practitioners and policy makers and communities and so there's there needs to be tools that are that that we need to create that um share capacity and share knowledge in an equitable way because um often times I mean we see it in um when we look at Civic engagement um we try to get people together but sometimes the way that we're inviting them may not be inclusive right so we need to kind of like reconsider that within tourism and within the tourism discussion like is everybody included in this discussion and who is being left out who are who is included why is there you are their voices missing are we missing a bigger picture and and that's the same with these case studies right so we have again like we have such a small sample so we need to have bigger examples and from different places in the Nordic to be able to see these case studies to see how it's happening in their in their communities right because um they may have like a they may have something that's more innovated that we hadn't you know we hadn't thought about um or they have like maybe examples of how they've been able to be more inclusive and engaging of the of the communities um especially when with some voices that aren often heard it's usually it's you know youth so youth that are you know maybe looking for uh training and education and they want to uh they may have an interest in in tourism industry like uh how do we engage the youth and how do we hear from what they from their you know from their viewpoints especially since they they live in you know in their communities so and the the aspect that I like more about with Community Development is that um that's cool places to live or cool places to visit right so if we develop communities that are very you know resilient and have um services that we need um people are happy and there's more you know there's better wellbeing but um if we focus just on tourism often times we think just about tourism businesses right and so there's that disconnect with communities so when we think about regenerative tourism it needs to be with the community at heart and when and thinking about communities you also think about the natural communities and also the social communities right so it has to be very holistic that's why it's more complicated then then you know than it than it really seems but um that's and so and very big and so it takes a lot of actors it takes a lot of um people working together and I think that's why we do need to develop those tools to be able to work better together and you know more effectively and also to make sure that we're inclusive that's a super good point but I think also what you say about the inclusiveness remember when last year we were trying to instigate a project about the local food entrepreneurs and we just didn't manage to get local food entrepreneurs involved so even though we have to include all these actors they don't necessarily think yet that they should be included yeah it's with other projects that I worked on with when um so I worked on this um Wildlife monitoring with with youth um sometimes teachers feel a little bit like they don't have the training or they don't have the knowledge to be able to do that with their youth groups but um a lot of times the things that we do is just learning by doing right and so it helps you become um more knowledgeable about about something is that you just got to do it and it feels more comfortable when you're doing it together with a group that also trying to learn about it so that's why you know this Collaborative Learning you know helps kind of helps become like this support right um so I I think it does a lot of times when you look at movements and social movements there's always somebody that is is the mobilizer right that person that kind of links everything together and um I think it's kind of a matter of like meeting these people that are these social mobilizers that kind of help bring people together and um sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn't you know sometimes we try to do it it's a little bit harder when we try to collaborate in different communities you have to have like that social mobilizer and these different communities to to get together and move and I think maybe we just need to like um it it does take a little bit of luck you know to be able to to get that forward but it's also very um there is a challenge with tourism because in the tourism industry people are very busy you know especially during the the summer seasons here and the in the the countryside here in Iceland we we experience both over tourism and under tourism so we get a bit of over tourism in the summer but in some places there's just very you know not much not much tourism that's happening um in the countryside so it's it can be a challenge about even when we're doing these projects and doing these studies to try to get everybody together yeah yeah it is and also like uh I think probably what the best approach would be for like driving this concept of regenerative tourism forward is just to do action research right we as a researcher being with all the time figuring out who are these mobilizing people in the communities and then just be with but of course we don't have all this time in the world no and it it's yeah like it's it does so through the networks you end up finding people that you know are working on something and then you kind of join and it does feel like it it it just depends on who you um end up meeting and how and then the timing of it if it just works out but even if it doesn't you know like what I've noticed with some other projects even if it didn't work out with one project like let's say because even applying so in the academic world God you you start engaging people right and then you get you get a group together then you apply and then you don't get funding and then what right and so so I think we're very cautious about it sometimes we we as academics we just like oh I just want you know we just want to write this application and then if we get it then we'll start engaging the the communities because then it can it gets very frustrating when you um ask you know if people would be willing to participate and then you don't get anything and that that's happened to me several times but um yeah and I I wish I you know I wish there was funding that would be you know I wish they would just fund us right that we all as academics wish that that would happen but like we um and like how so they like how do we and I don't have the answer that like with with funding like how do we um make sure like what is the E you know um I don't know I think I'm going to go down a road probably that you don't want me to to go on but there is there's several challenges with that the academics face with working with communities getting funding and um being like making sure that the project itself is working and so there's there's lots of skills that academic people need as well right and there's also like um we have to also be aware of like um like um you know people seeing us as like like a higher higher ranking than them right like we want to be Equitable so when we use action research we everybody's included in the in the research and then it takes it also takes some skill in like giving up some of the control within the project right so making sure that like we have to make sure that the project itself is scientifically sound but when when you work with with communities you also have to kind of give up some of that control as well and so a lot of that's where it gets involved a lot of teaching and training um and you know uh working more collaboratively together rather than having this hierarchy yeah yeah yeah I agree and I also think like once you manage to find the balance there then you get the results then people start to trust you and tell you things that you actually need for your research yeah yeah definitely last question Jessica like what is your vision with regenerative tourism within your work is there something that you're focusing on at the moment or that you would like to focus more in the future that you think is super important my my vision for regenerative tourism is I really do hope that um we can make uh tourism more sustainable that we can make it more um that it's that it's not taking so much from the environment then it's not taking so much from communities and that's why that's why I was attracted to regenerative the concept of regenerative tourism because I feel like it's more of an a way of being it's more an understanding of how we should just function and be in the world um so but right now what I've been focusing on with my research is is you know understanding the concept of regenerator ism I feel like um or just regenerative because I feel like it's um it's it's not something that that you get right away I think it's something that you have to kind of reflect on a lot to be able to understand like the how do we have this mindset for a generative right and the projects that I've been working on I've been focusing on knowledge sharing and capacity sharing and um getting um mobilizing communities to have a better voice um with decision makings in in their projects um and trying to develop those tools because like I said before it is a very complex it sounds very simple but it's very complex with the many actors nobody not everybody agrees you know there's there's how do you uh handle disputes and disagreements and uh this you know this idea that there's many different viewpoints how do we come to you know a better holistic view of what's happening so it yeah it's very I'm hope hopefully that I'm going to be able to kind of you know uh give back to my field and in the sense that I'm going to be leaving or um that the the work that I'm doing is going to be of use of some value is what I really hope I think many of us hope that um yeah so hopefully yeah so yeah that's that's I guess that's it yeah so I hope that I can contribute to my field and I really do hope that regenerative that the concept of regenerative it does have help the communities and helps um Wildlife helps uh us here in this world sounds it sounds that this would be achievable so fingers crossed yeah yeah hope so thank you so much for sharing your thoughts Jessica all right thanks [Music]
2024-12-22 17:49
