ENTOURAGE · European tourist cities in transformation: constructing age-friendly tourism mobilities
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-09-01 → 2023-08-31
- EU contribution
- €172,932
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
European tourist cities in transformation: constructing age-friendly tourism mobilities
The ENTOURAGE project has centred on the multiple contemporary challenges faced by tourism cities. Among them are urbanisation trends, population ageing, and the ongoing pressure of tourist mobilities on sustainability and social inclusion. The growing presence of older adults in tourist and resident communities has often remained underhighlighted these transitions. In response, the EU-funded ENTOURAGE project has examined age-inclusion and effects of tourism and touristification on older age mobilities along the lines of the ‘age-friendly city' framework. It has paid specific attention to urban mobility transitions in tourist cities, including the greater needs to accommodate active mobility such as walking and cycling as sustainable and healthy forms of transport. By taking an integrated approach to urban challenges and focusing on both resident and visitor populations, the project argues that mobility and tourism-related challenges can be addressed by enhancing our understanding of the societal needs of the growing older population. The project has worked to answer three specific objectives to contribute to the knowledge base about the future of urban tourism spaces and the inclusion of age-friendly mobilities in it. First, it has examined the discourse around age-diversity in tourism literature and in city strategies around urban transformations and sustainable mobility (SO.1). Second, it has analysed the production of urban space through the perspective of mobile and less mobile urban communities and the potentially marginalising role of (tourist) mobilities for some groups and individuals (SO.2). Third, it has investigated how visitors and residents of older age travel through and negotiate tourism spaces and active travel modes (SO.3).
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
By 2050, two-thirds of the population will live in cities, with people over 65 as the fastest growing cohort. In the EU, their share is projected to increase from 17.5% in 2010 to 29.5% in 2060. At the same time, intense movements of people, vehicles, capital and information challenge the sustainability and social inclusion in cities as they are. Such developments rapidly alter the requirements of currently dominant mobility systems, to cater for the needs of all people visiting or residing in the city. Recent urban transformations are producing new mobility clashes and encounters, which are felt by some groups more than others. Tourist cities are places where such clashes may be most intense and manifold, as they act as visitor hub and home to diverse resident and working populations. Population ageing requires a new understanding of the experiences of urban tourism spaces, at a time when the instability of mainstream city tourism has come to surface.ENTOURAGE unites mobilities, ageing and tourism studies to understand and tackle the negative effects of ‘overtourism’, and instead proposes an ‘age-friendly tourism’. It initiates a data-driven, participatory study with the aim to examine urban mobility transformations in European tourist cities and their effects on the social inclusion of older visitors and residents. The project takes place in the framework of the Age-friendly City, which argues that a focus on the societal needs of older people improves the quality of cities for all. Its interdisciplinary interface promises an innovative combination of qualitative and mobile methods, to capture the age-inclusiveness of urban tourist spaces. It mobilises the knowledge, skills and networks of expert institutions in tourism, urban ageing and smart urban analytics to propose an original combination of resident and visitor perspectives, creating new knowledge about their negotiations of urban quality and conflict.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI · TarragonaCoordinatorSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union