School of Business and Law Governance and Sustainable Tourism PhD Scholarship

Sustainable tourism is not a new concept and has been discussed for decades. However, the implementation/achievement of sustainable tourism in destinations looks very challenging. Sustainable tourism can be defined as an approach for development of a destination if economic, sociocultural, and environmental aspects of development can be balanced. In other words, the positive economic, social, and environmental impacts of tourism in a destination are maximized, while the negative impacts are minimized. To make this balance, destinations need an effective and efficient governance/good governance ecosystem. This project using a participatory action research approach aims to identify the components, roles of key stakeholders, and barriers and enablers of tourism good governance ecosystem and investigate how tourism governance can facilitate sustainable tourism for destinations.

Tourism has both positive and negative economic, sociocultural, and environmental impacts on destinations and sustainable tourism can be defined as a development approach to maximize positive and minimize negative impacts. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been widely acknowledged to serve this purpose and as a guiding framework for sustainable tourism. However, achieving this purpose (i.e. Maximizing positive and Minimizing negative impacts of tourism on destination) and making a balance between contributions to all SDGs is not an easy task and needs an innovative and efficient ecosystem. Moreover, tourism is a complex system with several stakeholders involved with different levels of power, interests and desires. Thus, managing the interests and conflicts of these stakeholders needs an effective ecosystem. In the wider domain of sustainable development, this ecosystem has been indicated as Governance, and several studies is tourism emphasized the importance of good governance to achieve sustainable tourism. However, there is lack of understanding about the components, structure and enablers of tourism governance which facilitate achievement of sustainable tourism in destinations. Therefore, this project aims to develop an effective and efficient governance (i.e. good governance) ecosystem for tourism destinations by involving all key stakeholders using a participatory action research approach to achieve sustainable tourism.

To be eligible for this scholarship, you must;

• Have an undergraduate degree in tourism or a related discipline and a degree that would enable entry into the PhD program (e.g. an honours degree featuring an additional year of study or a Masters degree with a significant research component).
• Meet the entry requirements in terms of English language proficiency.

• Capacity to develop a project proposal that aligns with the tourism focus outlined in the project brief
• Evidence of excellent interpersonal, communication and scientific writing skills
• Evidence of publications in top tier journals
• Evidence of research level English language proficiency
• Have relevant experience in quantitative and qualitative analysis
• Have knowledge or a keen interest in research in Governance and Sustainable Tourism

• Please refer to the full project guide to craft your project proposal.
• Please email a project proposal of 800-1,000 words (plus references) pertaining to this project (Governance and Sustainable Tourism), your CV, academic transcripts and an expression of interest outlining your motivation for applying for this scholarship in 300 words (+/- 10%) to sblresearch@ecu.edu.au

Applicants will be shortlisted for an in-person/online interview which will be held in early November.

For questions about this scholarship and informal enquiries please email Mostafa Rasoolimanesh and Peter Galvin