In recent months, the NEST project has focused its attention on investigating the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the tourism sector and has identified challenges and opportunities related to the digital and technological transformation of both tourism businesses and destination management and development.

With a view to making the most of its efforts, the NEST project contributed to the international discourse about the impact of Covid-19 on tourism and collaborated with other relevant initiatives and stakeholders of territorial cooperation.

The project monitored all relevant international webinars that were held by academic stakeholders, such as OTS webinars series, organised by the International Journal on Tourism and Sustainability and which saw the participation of professors from all over the world, and the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) live webinars. 

The project also monitored academic publications, such as a paper by Bob McKercher, member of the  Tourism Research Information Network (TRINET), an electronic bulletin board of over 3,000 tourism researchers and educators worldwide. The paper was published on 2nd April 2020 and highlighted how the re-birthing of tourism will require new sets of values and paradigms, as well as a dramatic shift from the over-tourism, over-consumption and excessive greed that defined much pre-COVID-19 tourism. 

After promoting and reviewing most of the ongoing research debates, between May and July 2020, the NEST project will organise a series of webinars covering different aspects of the digitization and innovation of the tourism sector. The webinars will include two Online talks, taking place in May, and two series of webinars that will be held between June and July. Each of these online meetings will be streamed through the project’s facebook page.