Hospitable Transitions: Building New Systems From the Ground Up

This article was written for Uncover magazine – From Global to Ground (10th edition). You can read the full magazine here. 

Authors: Stefan Hartman is the Head of Department at the European Tourism Futures Institute (ETFI) at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences. In this capacity, he acts as project leader of the SPRONG  Hospitable Transitions project . Frans Melissen is Transversal Professor of Sustainability Transitions at Breda University of Applied Sciences.

Who we are
Hospitable Transitions (Gastvrije Transities) is a movement for systemic change in LTH, driven by the SPRONG Hospitable Transitions group – a collaboration between NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences (lead partner), Breda University of Applied Sciences, HZ University of Applied Sciences, and InHolland University of Applied Sciences. The SPRONG group brings together eight professorships, and various industry partners ranging from entrepreneurs, businesses, public sector stakeholders, membership associations, destination marketing organisations and business support organisations. 

We connect practitioners, researchers, education, policy-makers and communities to turn promising but still isolated experiments into the collective momentum needed to drive fundamental change across the sector.

Our mission is: to accelerate sustainability transitions in LTH through a radical, futures-oriented approach. Radical, because real transformation requires the courage to fail forward. Futures-oriented, because we are not here to optimise the old systems, we are here to help build new ones.

How we work: from the ground up
We believe that lasting change starts with the people who dare to do things differently. That is why our approach centres on transition arenas: regional spaces where pioneers come together, share knowledge, challenge the status quo, experiment and build momentum. These pioneers are supported by our team through reflexive monitoring – a process of continuous collective learning and adaptation.

We have established four transition arenas, each focused on a theme that is critical for the sector’s future:

• Climate Neutral – led by NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences
• Broad Prosperity – led by Breda University of Applied Sciences
• Health – led by HZ University of Applied Sciences
• Regenerative Placemaking – led by Inholland University of Applied Sciences

These transition arenas act as temporary innovation networks aimed at developing and supporting radical ways of thinking and acting beyond ‘business as usual’ within the LTH sector. They are shaped as collective and co-creative learning processes that increase the self-organising capacity of the participants for crafting sustainable ways of operating (Notermans et al., 2022). 

Each transition arena consists of one or more informal, connected groups of pioneers, facilitated by a SPRONG transition arena manager, who generate and test radical ideas, spark conversations, challenge entrenched norms and frameworks, and drive action. The transition arena manager encourages these groups to focus on activities that challenge the more established systems and, when supported, have the potential to trigger large-scale systemic shifts aligned with the mission of the SPRONG Hospitable Transitions group. Furthermore, depending on challenges and opportunities identified, transition arena managers involve other people and organisations ‘on demand’ when they can contribute to fulfilling one or more key enabling roles (see italicised text below).

Key roles in accelerating sustainability transitions:

The game changer envisions the sustainable, regenerative, distributive future.

The pioneer takes the first brave steps to prove it can work.

The change-maker rolls out practical solutions within communities.

The change agent ensures they become standard practice.

The policy entrepreneur aligns systems and incentives to sustain it.

The enabling partner weaves them all together into a collaborative, resilient ecosystem.

What differentiates this transition arena approach from other participatory processes, is its focus on transformative change; challenging, altering or replacing dominant ways of doing, thinking and organising. The transition arena provides participants access to different types of (actionable) knowledge, networks and other resources (Schipper et al., 2022). 

Alongside these transitions arenas, we operate a transition forum: a strategic platform where high-level stakeholders from policy-makers to industry leaders work to remove barriers and create the conditions that allow grassroots innovations to take root and grow. As such, these stakeholders collaboratively challenge current systems from within the dominant regime (Grin, 2020). These stakeholders thus play a crucial role in ‘creating space’ for innovations stemming from transition arenas and ‘creating momentum’ for these innovations to break through more widely. Ideally, over time, these new spaces and this momentum lead to permanent changes in relevant systems (Loorbach et al., 2017). 

In other words, the transition forum proactively challenges existing regimes, increases urgency for change, destabilises counterproductive systems, and (re)builds systems that support the innovations needed for a ‘truly’ sustainable LTH sector, in line with the mission of the SPRONG Hospitable Transitions group.

Consequently, we consider our SPRONG group to be successful in accelerating sustainability transitions in LTH if/when we manage to: 

1. Help the pioneers’ (grassroots) initiatives to gain momentum; 
2. Serve as a catalyst for system change (e.g. new ways of working, new business and organisation models, new institutional arrangements, new policy instruments) that is inspired by and, in turn, supports such initiatives. 

In trying to realise these successes, the SPRONG group is mindful of the fact that all systems go through a period in which they rise, peak and then move into decline, while gradually being substituted by better ones. This shift from the old to the new is the critical transition process through which (human) resources start to flow towards the innovations that have proven to be effective. This allows old systems to offer their resources to help new systems emerge and develop, and then recede as the new takes hold, as highlighted in the figure on the right side (Based on Wheatley & Frieze (2008), adapted by the authors). 

Why this matters – and why now
The question is no longer whether the LTH sector needs to change. The question is who will step forward to shape what comes next. Every year of delay deepens the lock-in. Every pioneer working in isolation is a missed opportunity for systemic impact.

When pioneers connect, share and organise, something powerful happens. Alternatives gain credibility. New business models take root. Policy windows open. A new social licence to operate emerges – one built on genuine care for people and places, on regeneration instead of extraction, on broad prosperity instead of narrow profit.

The LTH sector is uniquely positioned to become a genuine catalyst for sustainability transitions. But this will not happen by itself.

Be part of this transition
Hospitable Transitions is not a closed initiative. It is an open movement, built on the conviction that the challenges ahead are too large and too urgent for any single organisation, sector or discipline to tackle alone. Pioneers, professionals, policy-makers, researchers, educators and students who share this sense of urgency and want to contribute to building a future-proof LTH sector are encouraged to connect, collaborate and help shape what comes next.

The future of leisure, tourism and hospitality will not emerge on its own. It is co-created by those who choose to act –  now, together. The next four articles of this UNCOVER edition further detail how this works in practice, for the themes of climate neutral, broad prosperity, health and regenerative placemaking. 

Sources

• Grin, J. (2020). ‘Doing’system innovations from within the heart of the regime. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 22(5), 682-694. 
• Loorbach, D., Frantzeskaki, N., & Avelino, F. (2017). Sustainability transitions research: Transforming science and practice for societal change. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 42, 599–626. 
• Notermans, V.I., von Wirth, T., & Loorbach D. (2022). An experiential guide for Transition Arenas. DRIFT, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. 
• Schipper, K., Steenbergen, F., Avelino, F. & Silvestri, G. (2022). Just Arenas. Guide for designing collaborative spaces for just sustainability transitions. DRIFT, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam. 
• Wheatley, M. & Frieze, D. (2008) Using Emergence to Take Social Innovation to Scale. The Berkana Institute, p1.