The Cultural Tourism Fieldlab KU Leuven

Research into building bridges of understanding between local communities and tourists

Marc Vanlangendonck

Our focus

Tourism, a recreational self-imposed nomadic way of life of deliberated limited duration and therefore distinguished from the normal sedentary existence holds multifaceted activities.

Tourism is an intricate phenomenon involving multiple layers of human interactions. It creates a complex network of various relationships that shape and evolve identities and experiences impacting both local communities and tourists.

By embracing sustainable and responsible travel and tourism our lab offers research striving for a genuine dialogue between ‘locals and tourists’. We explore tourism as a valuable dynamic communication tool between people.

In that perspective our research scouts tourism as a transformative activity with the ability to enrich lives, to foster and to educate intercultural understanding and cultural elasticity; to promote and to celebrate the dignity and rights of all people and of the environment.

Our research

Using the applied anthropological concept of culture as ‘drives to meaning in a set of rules, beliefs and conditions’, the research of our lab is characterized by more than one but through our focus assorted objective.

Some examples of our key themes.

  • Tackling tough stereotypes and myth-symbols about communities in tourist destinations.
  • Creating entry-levels models of respectful attitudes and values in international tourism.
  • Developing and scrutinizing practical research programs on the interpretation and presentation of heritage resources.
  • Analyzing the potential of tour leaders as cultural brokers with our Belgian partner ROC, Travel and Education Centre (http://www.roc.be).

Cooperation of KU Leuven students

Belgian and international students of the Master in Tourism KU Leuven curriculum collaborate in active ways with our lab doing case-related fieldwork about divers forms, functions and meanings of tourism in particular in the courses Applied Tourism and Culture & Tourism (also an elective course for the KU Leuven Master of Sustainable Development).

On several occasions throughout the academic year, we organize lectures and workshops concerning our ongoing lab research.

Research/Case-studies

Organisations with particular emphasis on locals-tourists relations

coming soon

Our KU Leuven steering committee

Marijke Dierick, Marc Laenen, Karel Peeters, Anne Marie Van Broeck, Dominique Vanneste, Marc Vanlangendonck.

Please contact Marc Vanlangendonck for more information and project collaboration.