MU faculty strongly represented at BEST EN Think Tank 2016
August 16, 2016
“Corporate Responsibility in Tourism - Standards, Practices and Policies” was the topic of the 16th annual BEST EN Think Tank that took place on July 13-15 in Eberswalde and Berlin, hosted by ZENAT Centre for Sustainable Tourism, Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development. Prof. Dagmar Lund-Durlacher, Kristof Tomej and Hannes Antonschmidt from the Department of Tourism and Service Management took part in the event and presented their research papers.
BEST EN Think Tanks (BEST EN stands for Building Excellence for Sustainable Tourism – an Education Network) are annual three-day events that aim to push the field of sustainable tourism research and education forward. Similarly to previous editions, this year’s Think Tank consisted of inspiring keynote speeches from Dr. Xavier Font (Leeds Beckett University, UK) and Petra Thomas (General Director, Forum Anders Reisen, Germany), excellent paper presentations from researchers and practitioners from different parts of the world, an industry panel during a field trip to Uckermark (voted Germany’s most sustainable destination) and workshops to identify content areas and learning outcomes that can be used by educators in sustainable tourism.
In their presentation titled “Analysing CSR Practices in Food Operations: A case study of holiday resorts in Gran Canaria and Antalya”, Prof. Lund-Durlacher and Hannes Antonschmidt, together with their colleague Klaus Peter Fritz (FHWien), discussed food operations at major mass tourism destinations in Europe. Kristof Tomej presented an outline for a study with the question in the title “Can Tourism Business Foster Better Inclusion for People with Visual Impairment?”, where he proposed a tool to measure the impacts of inclusive holiday experiences on the social inclusion of people with visual impairment. Within the framework of BEST EN Lecture series, Kristof also recorded a video lecture on “Disabilities and socially inclusive participation in tourism”. On behalf of the colleagues working on the topic of sustainable food operations, Klaus Fritz presented a lecture titled “Sustainable food on holidays”.
It is important to note that the conference did not only discuss responsible tourism practices but also aspired to become a showcase for sustainable conference tourism. This was reflected in the transportation of participants, conference materials and technology, catering and field trips. Furthermore, the Think Tank was carbon-neutral, as the carbon emissions were offset.
Besides traditional paper presentations, BEST EN Think Tank XVI was about co-producing knowledge during brainstorming, workshop sessions and discussions. As BEST EN is an open network, all its resources, including the contributions of our colleagues, are available free of charge to all students, academics, professionals and the public at www.besteducationnetwork.org.