Chapter 19: Bridging Theory and Practice: Lessons and Directions

There is global interest in and need for enhanced knowledge about the effective development and operation of tourism as a socioeconomic sector. Effective operation means ensuring that tourism is economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable and, significantly, contributes both to the host community’s quality of life and to tourists’ experience. This volume in the Bridging Tourism Theory and Practice book series (comprised mostly of papers presented at the 2015 t-Forum conference in Naples, Italy) has examined issues of knowledge transfer to and among sectors of the tourism industry in order to provide demonstrative examples of current as well as desirable practices or processes in this field. This final chapter synthesizes and identifies some of the presented themes for sin qua non bridges between the fields of practice and halls of academia. In general, this need was also in evidence in discussions at the 2015 World Tourism Forum Lucerne where an “academia meets industry” meeting was introduced as an official side-event: