SPRONG ‘Transitions in leisure, tourism & hospitality’

With a focus on (mainly SME) ‘frontrunners’ who can (potentially) make a difference, four regional transition arenas are developed using interactive, design-driven, and experimental approaches. These arenas focus on the themes of climate neutrality, broad prosperity, healthy regions, and regenerative area development. A national transition forum facilitates the optimal design of these transition arenas, knowledge sharing, and the acceleration of learning effects and transformation at the domain level.

Leading the SPRONG group are eight research groups from NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUAS), HZ University of Applied Sciences, and InHolland University of Applied Sciences.

What is the motivation for the project?

The hospitality sector is of great importance to the Dutch economy. In 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic, the sector generated a turnover of 91.2 billion euros and employed approximately 813,000 people. Since then, it has fully recovered in quantitative terms, with turnover and employment levels even exceeding pre-pandemic figures.

However, the pandemic highlighted the sector’s limited resilience in times of crisis. Additionally, societal challenges have made the limits of further development in the hospitality sector (including its products, services, and organizational and regulatory frameworks) increasingly evident. Social impacts such as noise pollution, waste, rising housing prices, and overcrowding, as well as environmental effects like greenhouse gas emissions, plastic waste, declining water quality, and land use, put pressure on climate, biodiversity, cultural heritage, landscapes, and local community livability. Ironically, the sector's own survival depends on a high-quality living environment.

What problem does the project address?

In academic circles, the social license of the hospitality sector and the necessity for a transition have been topics of discussion for some time. However, scalable and replicable solutions for sustainable practices that enable the sector to break free from an unsustainable development path remain limited. The academic community has therefore called for a new approach, leading the Association of Universities of Applied Sciences to include this sector in its Strategic Research Agenda 2022-2025 as a priority for impactful change.

Achieving a transition in the hospitality sector requires a niche approach, as described in the KIA MV. This sector—especially in the Netherlands—is dominated by micro and SME businesses and is characterized by organizational fragmentation. There are numerous small industry associations, and policymaking and implementation are distributed across multiple government sectors. This starting position necessitates the intentional design of an ecosystem where stakeholders collaboratively develop solutions for local societal challenges and scale them into a continuous and targeted movement toward a sustainable sector.

Who is the project team?

The SPRONG group is a collaboration of eight research groups across four universities of applied sciences: NHL Stenden (lead institution), Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUAS), HZ University of Applied Sciences, and InHolland University of Applied Sciences. These universities have strong connections with the Centre of Expertise (CoE) Leisure, Tourism & Hospitality (CELTH) and the Professors' Platform for Sustainable Urban Tourism (lead: InHolland), both established to drive sustainability in the hospitality sector.

The focus of the SPRONG group aligns with the long-term strategies of the involved universities, CoE, and knowledge centers. Additionally, industry partners are engaged, including Innovation Pact Fryslân, Tourism Alliance Fryslân, Van Gogh Homeland Foundation, the Province of North Holland, Merk Fryslân, Destination Netherlands, and the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area.

How does the project team approach this?

Together with frontrunners and ‘disruptors’ from the hospitality sector, the SPRONG group will develop four regional transition arenas using interactive, design-driven, and experimental approaches to address the themes of climate neutrality, broad prosperity, healthy regions, and regenerative area development. These four themes establish a direct link to regional policy agendas and societal challenges.

The optimal design of these transition arenas, knowledge sharing, and the creation of a learning effect at the domain level will be facilitated and organized by a national transition forum. This forum supports consortium and network partners in fostering practical opportunities and conditions for scalability and replicability of successful practices, thereby achieving systemic change.

What are the main (or preliminary) results?

The additional financial (and organizational) leverage associated with the SPRONG initiative is being used to develop, maintain, and utilize a combination of a robust and flexible ecosystem of local, regional, and national partners, connected to a solid and adaptable knowledge infrastructure.