Eating for Development? Linkages between tourist resorts, local food production and the Sustainable Development Goals

Event details

Gabriel Laeis is a lecturer at IUBH International University, Germany, where he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses on hospitality and tourism management.

His teaching is largely based on practical experience in the hospitality industry as a chef, waiter, sales executive and consultant. Gabriel holds an MSc in organic food chain management from University of Hohenheim, Germany, and a PhD in development studies from Massey University, New Zealand. He has designed and conducted research projects on agriculture-tourism linkages in South Africa and Fiji. He prefers to use participatory methodologies to fully immerse in the cultural specificities and interfaces of host communities and tourists.

Tourism receives considerable attention in development discussions and planning. A number of authors see particular prospects in the area of food producer linkages with the tourism industry in the Global South. I challenge the assumption that building such linkages between tourism and food production systems, especially agriculture and fisheries, is possible, and desirable, and would lead to more sustainable development, especially in island environments. I do this by drawing on data from research in hotel kitchens and on farms in the South Pacific country of Fiji. When reflecting on the Fijian data in light of SDGs 2, 12 and 14, it is apparent that there are considerable constraints to developing such linkages in a way that will deliver more sustainable development for rural communities in future.

This event will be livestreamed via our Facebook page and a high-quality version of this seminar will be uploaded to out YouTube channel.

The Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) is driving innovative, transdisciplinary research on socially just resilient food and water systems internationally.

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