MU at the BEST EN Think Tank 2012 in Gréoux les Bains, France

Dean Prof. Dagmar Lund-Durlacher, Chair of the BEST Education Network and Prof. Frederic Dimanche, Professor at SKEMA Business School, chaired the 12th BEST EN Think Tank in Greoux les Bains France, from the 24th to the 27th of June.

The theme of this year’s BESTEN Think Tank put focus on mobility in the context of sustainable tourism, not only addressing transportation issues but also aspects of social and economic mobilities and immobilities. About 60 educators, researchers and industry professionals from Australia, Asia, Europe and America convened in Provence to discuss the trends in regards to mobilities and its implications for encouraging sustainable mobility practices, particularly in the tourism context.

Prof. Alan Williams from Surrey University, UK discussed the complexity of the technological, political, economic and cultural drivers of mobility. He recognized that tourism mobility is closely interwoven with other forms of mobility describing the influence of migration and resultant international networks on tourism mobility.

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Prof. Stefan Gössling focused on transportation proposing that anxiety, personality and psychotic disorders may explain some travel behaviors and transport mode choices. Taking the example of a train station, he illustrated that such places may be considered spaces of fear while the personalized car represents a defensive capsule and an extension of the self. He proposed the use of concepts from clinical psychology to investigate such effects on mobility behaviors.

During the research presentations, two contributions were given from MODUL University: Anja Hergesell gave a presentation on her research, entitled “Encouraging Environmentally Friendly Transport Mode Choices in the Holiday Context - The Trade-Offs between Price, Comfort and Time.” This research investigates the effects of price increases on transport mode choice when considering product characteristics (time, price, comfort) and consumer characteristics (socio-economics, demographics, psychographics).

Tina Roenhovde Tiller also gave a presentation on her research entitled “Furthering the understanding of the Slow Travel phenomenon – deceleration through the travel experience.” In her presentation, Tina emphasised the limited understanding of the slow travel phenomenon, and proposed a new angle for her future research on the topic.

In addition to presenting current research, the participants of the Think Tank actively worked on selected topics in regards to sustainable mobilities developing educational materials and identifying knowledge gaps for further research. The Think Tank proceedings, presentations, educational and research materials are available at Best Education Network.

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Executive members of the BEST EN Network: Tina Roenhovde Tiller, Caroline Scarles of the University of Surrey, Anja Hergesell, Pierre Benckendorff of the University of Queensland, Dagmar Lund-Durlacher, Deborah Edwards of UTS Business School and Janne Liburd of the University of Southern Denmark.

Dr. Scarles, Dr. Beckendorff and Dr. Liburd have all been speakers at MU's Latest Trends and Innovations in Tourism series.