This page presents an overview of current and completed projects by the Institute for Tourism Sustainability. It features research and advisory work in areas such as sustainable destination development, climate action, crisis resilience, data-driven tourism, sustainable food systems, plastic waste reduction and tourism governance. Selected project outputs, including manuals, guidelines, research reports, toolkits and practical recommendations, are available for free download.
“D3Hub – Data-Driven Destinations Hub” (11/2023 – 11/2026) supports European tourism destinations in using data for green, digital and resilient transformation. -> more
“Naturally East Bavaria – Sustainable Tourism in Focus” (08/2025 – 09/2028) supports ten East Bavarian districts in strengthening sustainable tourism. -> more
“Study on the use of Single Use Plastic, Packaging and Waste Management in the tourism sector and municipalities with a focus on the destination sites Trang and Koh Tao in Thailand” supports WWF’s work to reduce plastic waste leakage into the sea in Thailand’s tourism destinations Koh Tao and Trang, including Pak Meng, Koh Mook and Koh Libong -> more
“Sustainable EU Tourism – Shaping the Tourism of Tomorrow” (12/2023 – 12/2025) aimed to support DMOs and tourism stakeholders on their way to becoming more sustainable and resilient destinations, guided by the Transition Pathway for Tourism. -> more
“Crisis Management and Governance in Tourism” (11/2023 – 04/2024) aimed to strengthen the resilience of the EU tourism ecosystem by improving governance, crisis preparedness and response capacity. -> more
“Scaling Up Sustainable Food Management in Tourism” (09/2022 – 08/2023) created tools to improve sustainable food management in tourism -> more
“Sustainable Hotel Management Training in Antalya, Turkey”(06/2023) delivered three training sessions (basic and advanced) on Sustainable Food and Plastic Waste Management in Antalya for Trainers and Hotel representatives organised by Hotelplan and Futouris.
“Raising awareness among travel agency staff and travelers about the climate impact of travel” (10/2022 – 02/2023) developed a label of the carbon footprint of package tours and travel components for use in travel information and booking systems -> more
“Supporting the Development of a Tourism Sustainability Satellite Account and Indicators in Croatia” (09/2022 – 11/2023) provided guidance to strengthen and share tourism data to support the Tourism Sustainability Satellite Account in Croatia -> more
“DG Growth – SMART Tourism Destinations” (04/2022 – 09/2023) supported 50 destinations in Europe on their way to smart tourism -> more
“Expert Concept and Guidelines for the Sustainable Tourism Development in Rheinland-Pfalz” (05/2022 – 12/2022) will provide a future orientation and action framework for sustainable tourism development in Rheinland-Pfalz -> more
“Sustainable Food Toolkit” (01/2022 – 03/2024) updated and digitised the successful and widely used handbook „Sustainable Food“, which was first published in 2015 ->more
“Unbalanced tourism growth at destination level – root causes, impacts, existing solutions and good practices” (01/2021 – 06/2022) focuses on the phenomenon of overtourism, its causes, impacts as well as possible solutions for mitigating and preventing its negative effects at destination level -> more
“Transforming Tourism – Protecting biodiversity and increasing local value creation by promoting sustainable tourism development in three pilot destinations in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica” (01/2020 – 06/2023) aims at protecting biodiversity and increasing local value creation by promoting sustainable tourism development in three pilot destinations in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica -> more
“European Tourism Going Green 2030 (ETTG)” (01/2021 – 06/2023) will support tourism SMEs (accommodation, tour operator, travel intermediaries) to implement sustainability in their businesses -> more
“Sustainable Food Workshops” (01/2018 – ongoing) train environmental, quality or service managers as well as hotel staff about sustainable food services and operations -> more
“APCC Special Report on tourism and climate change” (03/18 – 02/20) summarizes and assesses the state of knowledge of all aspects of regarding the interrelationship of Austria’s tourism to climate change based on contributions by the full community of Austrian researchers and related experts -> more
“TRIANGLE – The Tourism Research, Innovation and Next Generation Learning Experience” (11/2016 – 08/2019) builds a European sustainable tourism education and training Knowledge Alliance with the objective of improving the innovation potential and competitiveness of SMEs and tourism destinations in Europe.
“VorTEIL – Vorzeigeregion Tourismus – Energietechnologien und Innovationen leben” (07/2016 – 03/2017) is to accompany the development and demonstration of intelligent, secure and affordable energy and transportation technologies, based on renewable energy sources within the Austrian tourism sector.
“Sustainable Food Communication” (8/2016 – 12/2017) developed and tested communication tools to create awareness for sustainable food among hotel guests in order to improve the sustainability balance of food operations in the travel industry -> more
“Sustainable Food in the Travel context” (10/2015 – 3/1016) provides an analysis of sustainable food service offers.