Sustainable Tourism and the Public Value of Nature

This conference is a response to the 2017 UNWTO World Tourism Day, during the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development.  It is a collaboration between The Tourism Society, the University of Central Lancashire’s Applied Policy Science Unit and Policy Network, an international think-tank.  Drawing upon the expertise of practising professionals, policy makers and scholars it uses tourism as a vehicle to give a public value perspective on nature and environmental decision making.

This public value perspective gives a powerful insight into the web of values, places, organizations, rules, knowledge, and other cultural resources that constitute the public sphere and which are held in common by people through their everyday commitments and behaviours, and held in trust by government and public institutions.
The conference focuses upon areas like the English Lake District and Solway Firth, places of high landscape and cultural value in which the natural environment provides society with a sense of belonging, meaning, purpose and continuity and enables people to thrive and strive amid uncertainty.  In these areas the visitor economy converts assets like scenery and culture into economic value.  A public value perspective also embraces economic value and incorporates socio-cultural, historical and symbolic values which can’t be easily expressed economically and yet which have a high value in the public sphere.
In recent years, the valuation of environmental services and objects in the public sphere has become a priority in public policy.  This growing interest is in part due to the importance, urgency, scope, and scale of environmental issues facing the world, a recognition of the wider value of nature and the pragmatic recognition that governments alone cannot effectively address many of these problems.
However, public value involves more than just the public sector - it extends, physically and virtually, into privately owned space.  Moreover, as the distinction between public and private becomes more blurred, in a world still weighing the implications of the Brexit decision and the Trump presidency, the problem of oppositional thinking has come to the fore.
Public value requires a less binary, more integrative and less oppositional perspective on decision making with public and private sectors engaging in hybrid spaces in which organisational and sectoral boundaries are blurred and valuations are complex.  Today, nowhere is this more evident than in tourism where public and private property and perspectives interact and sometimes conflict to create or destroy value in the public sphere and protect the earth that we share.

Programme

MORNING
09.00 - 09.45
Arrival and Refreshments
09.45 - 09.55
Chair’s Welcome
Trudy Harrison MP, Member of Parliament for Copeland
Member of the Applied Policy Science Unit Advisory Board
09.55 - 10.00
Opening Remarks
Jenny McGee FTS, Executive Director, The Tourism Society
10.00 - 10.30
Spaceship Earth:
Space Applications Supporting Sustainable Tourism
Dr Rick Wylie FTS FInstTT
Executive Director, UCLan Applied Policy Science Unit
Isabelle Duvaux-Béchon
Head of the Member States Relations and Partnerships Office,
European Space Agency
10.30 - 11.00
Balancing Tourism and Environmental Sustainability
Gill White, Managing Director, Cumbria Tourism
11.00 - 11.15
BREAK
11.15 - 11.45
The Fife Arms, Braemar:
Hospitality meets art and culture in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park
Federica Bertolini, General Manager, The Fife Arms
11.45 - 12.00
Social Exclusion and the Public Value of Nature
Suzanne Wilson, Research Fellow in Social Exclusion and Community Development, UCLan
12.00 - 12.15
Place, Nature and West Cumbria
Dr John Scanlan, Research Fellow in Place Development and Promotion,UCLan
AFTERNOON
12.15 - 13.15
LUNCH
13.15 - 13.45
The Spiritual Value of Nature
Professor Richard Sharpley, Professor of Tourism, UCLan
13.45 - 14.15
Every Name Tells a Story:
Sharing an Inspirational Coastline
Nic Coombey, Coastwise Coordinator, Solway Firth Partnership
14.15 - 14.45
The Lake District National Park World Heritage Site (tbc)
Liz Davey, Partnership Manager, Lake District National Park
14.45 - 15.00
BREAK
15.00 - 15.30
Lucy’s Carbon: Monetising Landscapes
Benjamin Carey FTS, Carey Tourism and The Tourism Society
15.30 - 16.00
Agro-tourism Family Businesses and Sustainable Entrepreneurship
Dr Elias Hadjielias
Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, UCLan Cyprus
16.00 - 16.30
The Nature of Attracting Talent – a perspective
Luke Dicicco, Head of Content, Choose Cumbria
16.30
Closing Remarks

This event is free thanks to the generous sponsorship of the Samuel Lindow Foundation, an independent educational charity.