Collaborative Innovation and Digital Co-creation for Sustainable Tourism Futures

Held on 2 July 2025 at the Escola Superior de Ciências Empresariais, Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal, Portugal, as part of the 2nd International Conference on Resilience and Sustainable Regions, the seminar entitled “Collaborative Innovation and Digital Co-creation for Sustainable Tourism” Futures addressed critical transformations currently reshaping the tourism industry. Anchored in the SHIFT research project (Sustainability-oriented, Highly interactive, and Innovation-based Framework for Tourism Marketing), this session explored how tourism management can evolve to meet the challenges posed by climate change, digitalisation, and shifting societal values.

Structured around five academic contributions, the seminar offered both theoretical and empirical insights into emerging tourism governance paradigms. The first presentation contextualised the SHIFT project, outlining its objectives, methodologies, and conceptual foundations. The subsequent four presentations examined key findings from the project’s core research strands, including the co-design of collaborative marketing strategies, the role of co-creation platforms in stakeholder engagement, and the application of scenario planning to anticipate and respond to global shifts.

Throughout the session, participants engaged with critical questions concerning the future of tourism management as a discipline capable of shaping, rather than merely reacting to, the dynamics of change. The contributions underscored the importance of embedding interactivity, inclusiveness, and innovation within destination management practices, while promoting more adaptive and future-oriented governance models.

This seminar contributed substantively to the academic and professional discourse on sustainable tourism futures, providing a valuable platform for knowledge exchange and cross-sector dialogue within the context of regional resilience and sustainability transitions.