Fahimeh Tavafi

PhD Programme: Tourism and Leisure
Research group: GRATET – Research Group on Territorial Analysis and Tourism Studies
Supervisors: Aaron Gutiérrez Palomero & Xavier Delclòs Alió

Bio

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Project: Mobility of cruise passengers in the city of Barcelona after COVID-19: analysis of its spatial logic and its relationship with the urban environment

COVID-19 outbreak and the related national measures oriented to mitigate the pandemic has had a disruptive impact in human mobilities all around the world. Travel and tourism activities have fallen to "ground zero" and tourism destinations have tried to adapt to the new challenges and emerging requirements. A growing number of academics and professionals have highlighted that this crisis has contributed to question old development paths and envision new sustainable tourism futures. Nevertheless, it is still unclear whether the pandemic will end with a return to 'business as usual' or whether significant changes in tourism destination development will emerge. Within that context, new research on the contribution of the pandemic to the acceleration of local/global transitions to a more sustainable tourism model will be required in the forthcoming years. The objective of this research is to contribute to that field by adding new empirical based evidences on the redefinition of tourism mobilities in destinations in post-Covid-19 context and their contribution to build new pathways for a more sustainable tourism planning and development. This research will cover the study of: (1) changes of tourism mobilities in destinations following the COVID-19 outbreak, (2) responses implemented by public and private actors at local/regional level oriented to face the emerging challenges, (3) their contribution (or not) to a transition to a more sustainable tourism destinations planning and development. Different tourism destinations in Catalonia will be selected as study areas; including coastal, urban, and rural/mountain destinations. The empirical approach will combine both quantitative and qualitative techniques.