Name: The soul of tourism: Anthropological perspectives on cultivating true destination stewardship
Start: 2026-11-20T15:00:00.000Z
End: 2026-11-20T15:45:00.000Z

About this webinar

Speaker update, 2 October 2026: Confirmed speakers: Jonathon Day and Jonathan Tourtellot.

Tourism brings residents, visitors and service workers into social relationships shaped by history, identity, memory and unequal power. This webinar uses anthropological perspectives to examine destination stewardship beyond visitor numbers and conventional economic indicators. It considers place attachment, living heritage, narrative authority and everyday uses of public space. The session will explore how tourism changes the meanings associated with a destination and how the expectations of visitors can influence which local practices, stories and identities become visible or commercially valued.

Panellists will ask who belongs in destination planning, whose knowledge is recognised and how authority is exercised across public institutions, businesses and community organisations. The discussion will examine the tourist gaze, informal cultural labour and the transformation of neighbourhoods into spaces of consumption. It will avoid romanticising communities or treating culture as a fixed commodity. Internal disagreement, social change and differences in access to political influence will be recognised as important elements of any credible account of stewardship.

Participants will gain qualitative methods for listening to different groups and interpreting how people experience tourism development. These methods include ethnographic observation, narrative inquiry, participatory mapping and sustained community dialogue. The webinar will show how such evidence can complement economic and environmental measures without being reduced to a token consultation exercise. Delegates will learn to design governance arrangements that support shared care, public accountability and continuing negotiation over the future of places that are simultaneously homes, workplaces and destinations. This perspective helps ensure that stewardship remains grounded and historically informed in practice.

Speakers and chair

Jonathan Tourtellot

Speaker

mr · Destination Stewardship Center

USA

Jointly with GSTC, the Destination Stewardship Report seeks to provide useful academic findings in a readable form for busy practitioners in the field.

Scholardemia profile

Dr. Jonathon Day

Speaker

Purdue University

United States

Jonathon Day is an Associate Professor in the White Lodging–J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Purdue University. His research and teaching examine sustainable tourism, destination management and branding. He explores how responsible travel can improve the quality of life of destination communities and brings professional experience in tourism marketing to his academic work.

Scholardemia profile Purdue Academic Profile STaRT website Travel Care Code ORCID Google Scholar

Prof. Eugenia Wickens

Chair and organiser

OTS Academy

United Kingdom

Here I am. I am me. Not you. Just me.

Scholardemia profile ORCID Google Scholar

Committee

Organising Committee

Operational leadership and event delivery team.

Prof. Eugenia Wickens

Chair

OTS Academy

United Kingdom

Here I am. I am me. Not you. Just me.

Scholardemia profile ORCID Google Scholar

Photos

Living heritage and cultural work. Illustrative photograph — Los Muertos Crew / Pexels.
Listening to local knowledge — AI-generated editorial illustration.
Who controls cultural representation? — AI-generated editorial illustration.
Negotiating stewardship together — AI-generated editorial illustration.
Living heritage changes with its community — AI-generated editorial illustration.