Stranded assets risk perceptions in tourism: the case of Dutch outbound tour operators

Activity: Talk or presentationOral presentationAcademic

Description

The recent COP28 has let us closer to steering towards “the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era” (The Lancet Planetary Health, 2024, p. e1). Tourism, a sector seemingly incapable of transitioning away from fossil fuel dependency therefore potentially lends itself to asset stranding under stricter multinational climate policy. Yet, it remains understudied and unclear whether asset stranding (losing value) is perceived as a risk by stakeholders and what role risk perception plays in climate policy (Mayer et al., 2017). To deepen our understanding of climate-related asset stranding risk perceptions within the Dutch tourism sector we conducted a case study of Dutch outbound tour operators through interviews with financial stakeholders and experts and workshops with Dutch outbound tour operators’ employees and policy makers respectively. Our findings show that the ’carbon lock-in effect’ caused by dependency on fossil fuels is seen as a large potential climate-related asset stranding driver for tour operators. Reflections by the tour operators illustrate that there is a large need for external stimulation through policies to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels. Policy makers respond to this by indicating that ideally policies should incentivise tour operators towards sustainable operators but indicate a preference ‘soft’ governance approach to a ‘hard’ governance approach. This demonstrates that despite (climate) risk awareness, risk perceptions play a significant role in maintaining the fossil fuel dependency status quo. Considering the inevitable low-carbon transformation, these limits of business and policy initiatives pose the question: who will attempt to take climate action first?
Period25 Aug 2024
Event title35th International Geographical Conference (IGC)
Event typeConference
LocationDublin, IrelandShow on map