Postgraduate Researchers

Post-doctoral researcher

Vanessa is working on the ARISE funded project Pathways for developing New Urban Tourism in Dublin (PNUT).  Urban tourism researchers (e.g. Koens & Milano 2024) have noted a growing tendency for tourists to venture beyond traditional city centre hotspots in search of ‘off the beaten track’ experiences. This so-called New Urban Tourism (NUT) represents unprecedented opportunities for non-traditional stakeholders based in non-tourismified parts of cities to develop enterprises that benefit city neighbourhoods. It further represents an opportunity for city planners to tackle the problems allied to mass tourism e.g. overtourism, the presence of multinational tourism enterprises poorly linked into the local economy and tourismification of the city core. This project asks how NUT can create enterprise and employment capable of combatting the societal challenges facing Dublin city (e.g. social exclusion, long-term unemployment, social inequalities).  Methodologically, it is guided by Urban Tourism Living Lab principles: researchers are working co-creatively with business, community, creative, social enterprise and governance partners to identify problems, opportunities and trial solutions. Design thinking is used as rational problem solving to make quality-of-life and the needs of local places feature more centrally in urban tourism discourse.