• Digitalisation: What kind of opportunities and threats does digitalisation imply in the conservation and development of natural sites?
• Climate change: How is tourism management approaching this changing reality?
• Global demographic evolution: How are UNESCO designated sites in natural areas getting ready to face the challenges of demographic change?

During the Winter Academy T.UN.NA, international experts will tackle these megatrends focusing on the context of the Dolomites area, in order to establish a crucial connection between global challenges and possible local solutions provided by tourism stakeholders and local communities.

Main topics and three dilemmas of the sustainable development of tourism

Tourism development in natural areas poses some new challenges. During the Winter Academy these challenges will be approached through the lens of three main dilemmas.

• #1 Private vs public
  Nature is a common good. Everyone has the right to enjoy it. But what is the best way to protect nature and, at the same time, to make it more accessible? The economic theory provides two approaches: public vs private management. However, many success cases around the world also suggest a third way to manage the natural good, which is somewhere in the middle between the private and the public and takes the best from the two approaches. 
• #2 Openness vs closure
  The right to nature is present in many national constitutions. Nature is a source of health and well-being and the importance (and value) of nature is growing due to its scarcity in urban areas, where more than half of the world’s population lives today. Natural areas are more and more accessible today, thanks to infrastructure and technological innovations that help people experience nature as never before. But natural areas are under threat: the more accessible they are, the more exposed they are to crowds, pollution, traffic, noise. Some sites opted for the strict regulation of tourist flows, while many others tried to maintain a free and open access.
• #3 Consumption and use vs experience
  How to value a natural site? This important question drives the choices of public and private operators that manage natural areas. We can exploit a forest by cutting down all the trees, or by building some luxury resorts, but what remains for future generations? Is it only the current financial flow that determines the success of a tourism project or should we consider some other factors? How can we ensure sustainable development without compromising the natural resource itself? How should we design tourism development to find a balance between present and future stakeholders?