WebinarOnline
Placemaking with purpose: Sustainable community planning and tourism geography in the Asian context
Friday, 7 May 2027
This webinar explores how spatial evidence and community planning can support liveable tourism destinations across diverse Asian settings.
About this event
Land use, transport, public space, heritage and access to everyday services determine how tourism becomes part of a place. This webinar applies geographical analysis and community planning to varied Asian contexts. It examines how spatial evidence can reveal relationships among visitor activity, local livelihoods and environmental limits. The session will avoid treating Asia as a single tourism model by recognising differences in governance, development patterns, culture, ecology and the scale at which tourism is experienced.
Panellists will compare fragile coastal areas, mountain settlements, historic urban districts and expanding cities. The discussion will use mapping to examine displacement, concentrated visitor activity, environmental exposure and community access to public resources. It will consider how infrastructure and property investment change the distribution of opportunity and risk. Attention will also be given to informal economies and uses of space that may be absent from official datasets but remain essential to the social and economic life of a destination.
Participants will learn to combine spatial data with community knowledge when identifying planning priorities. They will consider accessibility, land tenure, public space, heritage protection and ecosystem capacity within a shared analytical framework. The webinar will also address participation in planning and the authority required to influence investment decisions. Delegates will leave with methods for developing community-led spatial plans that protect livelihoods and cultural meaning while supporting ecological stability, and for comparing destinations without erasing the distinct histories and institutions that shape each place. This approach places spatial justice alongside commercial feasibility in destination planning decisions.
Featured speakers
CR
CB Ramkumar
Founder · HotelBFF