Call for Papers
Call for Papers
We invite you to join us for the Thirteenth International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies, the annual meeting of the Tourism & Leisure Studies Research Network, hosted by Edinburgh Napier University, taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland, and online, 15–16 June 2028.
Founded in 2015, the Tourism & Leisure Studies Research Network is a leading international meeting place for researchers, educators, tourism and hospitality professionals, policymakers, planners, cultural practitioners, and community leaders working across the social, economic, cultural, environmental, and organizational dimensions of tourism and leisure. The conference welcomes proposals that consider tourism and leisure not only as industries or forms of consumption, but as social practices that shape places, communities, identities, economies, and everyday life.
Across the world, tourism and leisure are being transformed by climate change, shifting patterns of mobility, economic inequality, technological innovation, changing labor conditions, and growing debates about access, sustainability, and the rights of local communities. Key issues include overtourism, destination management, cultural heritage, community participation, environmental responsibility, digital tourism, hospitality, leisure inequalities, and the future of travel. We welcome interdisciplinary proposals that engage these questions through research, professional practice, policy, design, cultural inquiry, and community-based knowledge.
Power, Place, and Possibility:
Tourism and Leisure in a Contested World
We meet at a moment when tourism and leisure are expanding possibilities for cultural exchange, economic development, personal experience, and social connection, while also generating new pressures on places, environments, and communities. Travel connects people across borders, yet access to mobility and leisure remains profoundly unequal. Destinations benefit from visitor economies, yet many face mounting challenges related to housing, infrastructure, environmental degradation, cultural displacement, and competing claims over public space.
Who has the power to shape tourism and leisure futures? Whose places, cultures, and experiences are represented, marketed, or transformed? How can destinations balance economic opportunity with environmental responsibility, community well-being, and cultural integrity? What possibilities emerge when tourism and leisure are understood not only through markets and visitor experiences, but through questions of justice, participation, belonging, and shared responsibility?
The 2028 special focus, Power, Place, and Possibility: Tourism and Leisure in a Contested World, invites participants to examine how tourism and leisure are shaped by relationships of power and how they, in turn, reshape the places and societies in which they occur.
Tourism is never simply the movement of people between destinations. It involves the production of images and experiences, the organization of labor, the use of natural and cultural resources, and negotiations among visitors, residents, businesses, governments, and communities. Likewise, leisure is not equally available to all. It is shaped by work, income, time, disability, age, gender, cultural expectations, and the organization of everyday life.
Edinburgh offers a particularly meaningful setting for these conversations. As an internationally recognized destination for culture, heritage, festivals, and urban tourism, the city provides a context for examining the relationship between visitor economies, cultural identity, urban development, public space, and community life. Its distinctive cultural and architectural landscape invites reflection on how destinations navigate the opportunities and tensions created by their global visibility.
This special focus asks how tourism and leisure might be imagined differently. What forms of governance can give communities a greater role in shaping tourism development? How can cultural heritage and public space be sustained amid competing demands? What responsibilities do tourism and hospitality organizations have toward workers, residents, and the environment? How are digital platforms and emerging technologies changing the experience and management of destinations? What would more equitable, resilient, and locally responsive tourism and leisure systems look like?
We welcome theoretical, empirical, professional, policy-oriented, and practice-based contributions addressing tourism and leisure as sites of power, cultural negotiation, environmental responsibility, economic transformation, and social possibility.
Themes
- Theme 1: Power, Governance, and Tourism Futures: exploring how tourism and leisure are shaped by institutions, economic systems, political decisions, and competing interests. It invites work on tourism governance, destination management, public policy, tourism economics, labor and employment, platform economies, overtourism, stakeholder participation, community rights, ethical business models, and the distribution of benefits and costs across the tourism ecosystem.
- Theme 2: Place, Heritage, and Community Life: exploring the relationships among tourism, place, cultural identity, heritage, and local communities. It invites work on cultural and heritage tourism, urban and rural destinations, festivals, creative tourism, Indigenous and local knowledge, place-making, authenticity, cultural representation, resident experiences, community-led tourism, and the tensions between visitor development and everyday life.
- Theme 3: Leisure, Mobility, and Unequal Access: exploring tourism and leisure as social experiences shaped by mobility, time, income, identity, and opportunity. It invites work on leisure inequalities, accessibility, inclusive tourism, disability, aging, family travel, gender, migration, social tourism, recreation, hospitality experiences, digital leisure, well-being, and changing patterns of participation and consumption.
- Theme 4: Sustainability, Resilience, and Alternative Possibilities: exploring how tourism and leisure can respond to environmental, economic, and social pressures while opening possibilities for more sustainable futures. It invites work on climate change, regenerative tourism, ecotourism, sustainable destination planning, biodiversity, circular economies, crisis and disaster management, responsible travel, technological innovation, community resilience, and alternative models of tourism development.
We also welcome proposals addressing the core themes of the Tourism & Leisure Studies Research Network, including methods, models, and practices; participation, access, and impacts; communicating experience; and future practices.
Knowledge Experience and Format
The conference is organized as a hybrid knowledge experience, integrating in-person and online participation within a unified scholarly environment.
For in-person delegates in Edinburgh, the conference is designed as a human-scale gathering shaped by conversation, shared inquiry, and place-based exchange. Sessions, talking circles, breaks, and informal encounters create opportunities to connect tourism and leisure research with professional practice, destination management, hospitality, cultural policy, community knowledge, and the real-world systems that shape visitor experiences and local life.
For online delegates, the conference is more than a remote viewing option. Accepted proposals become Presentation Pages in CGScholar where presenters share abstracts, media, and supporting materials. Delegates participate through live online sessions, asynchronous engagement, and discussion spaces that remain available before, during, and after the event.
Across both formats, the emphasis is on reciprocal exchange rather than one-way presentation. Whether joining in Edinburgh or online, participants are part of a shared knowledge environment where ideas can be presented, discussed, revisited, and developed into future collaborations, publications, policy conversations, professional practices, and community initiatives
Publication Pathways
Presenters are invited to further develop their conference work for possible publication in the Journal of Tourism and Leisure Studies, the peer-reviewed journal of the Tourism & Leisure Studies Research Network. Prospective authors can consult the journal's submission guidelines on CGScholar.
Participants may also propose longer-form projects for the Tourism & Leisure Studies Book Imprint, which publishes monographs and edited collections focused on tourism development, leisure practices, hospitality, cultural heritage, destination management, sustainability, community participation, and the changing relationships among travel, place, and society.
All accepted proposals are included in the conference proceedings, providing a formal record of the conference program and presentation abstracts. Proceedings help make presenters’ work discoverable as part of the annual knowledge record of the Research Network.
Member-Based Research Community
Membership in the Tourism & Leisure Studies Research Network provides year-round access to the community, publications, and programs that support the conference. Members receive benefits including conference registration discounts, access to digital media archives from past conferences, publishing pathway benefits, online programming, Network updates, and opportunities to grow their professional network in person and online. Membership also includes personal electronic access to journal and book content published by the Research Network.
Membership in the Tourism & Leisure Studies Research Network is included in all conference Presenter Passes.
Join Us
We warmly invite you to submit a proposal and join us, either in Edinburgh or online, for the Thirteenth International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies.
Edinburgh offers a compelling setting in which to consider the relationships among tourism, heritage, culture, urban life, and community identity. Together, we will examine how tourism and leisure futures can be shaped with greater attention to power, place, participation, and possibility — creating more equitable, sustainable, and resilient relationships among visitors, destinations, and the communities that sustain them.
Sincerely,
Dr. XX, Conference Chair, XX
Esmeralda Crespo Almendros, Research Network Chair, University of Granada, Spain
Ana Isabel Polo-Peña, Research Network Chair, University of Granada, Spain
Phillip Kalantzis-Cope, Chief Social Scientist, Common Ground Research Networks, United States of America