Since the 1960s, the Algarve region of Portugal has evolved into a well-established mass tourism destination, attracting visitors from key European markets such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. Unsurprisingly, tourism plays a central role in the regional economy accounting for more than 60% of its economic output. However, this decades-long trajectory of mass tourism development has also resulted in a narrow tourism market largely focused on a single product, namely beach-based leisure. This is despite attempts by local authorities to diversify their tourism offerings through investment in initiatives such annual event-tourism programmes and inland nature-based tourism activities. In contrast to the stasis of the Algarve tourism product, the tourism sector has been subjected to rapid recent change and uncertainty from contemporary global crises, including amongst others, climate change, COVID-19 and Brexit. As a result of these seismic shifts in the tourism sector landscape, important questions have been raised by stakeholders about how tourism-related sectors of the economy can sustainably develop resilience, enhance innovation, and realise long-term economic aspirations (Lekgau and Tichaawa, 2021). In response, new research approaches grounded in sustainable and regenerative tourism principles are being co-developed with tourism stakeholders to address current and future challenges. In this paper we provide an overview of two evolving innovative research initiatives, namely the DIBEST (Digital Innovation for Blue Enterprises & Social Tourism) and The FuturETHinking project. The EU funded Interreg Atlantic Area DIBEST project focuses on how digitalisation can leverage the blue economy to foster sustainable growth and innovation in the region's tourism sector. Embracing digital technologies can enhance the visitor experience while minimising environmental impact. Furthermore, digitalisation offers tools for better management and monitoring of marine resources, aiding in the preservation of the Algarve's coastal ecosystems (Balogun et al., 2020). As part of the DIBEST project, Algarve micro-tourism businesses and other stakeholders have already contributed to focus group discussions informing the development of a survey instrument to examine the digitalisation needs and challenges of micro-tourism enterprises across the DIBEST project area. As the project progresses, their involvement will involve participating in the trial and evaluation of training to support digital business transformations. Turning to the FuturETHinking project, this research focuses on how event-tourism organisations navigate emotional barriers to future thinking with the purpose of identifying and testing techniques which support future planning. This work diverges from previous future-planning studies which have predominantly focused on operational aspects. Instead, our data comes from small-group discussion (polylogues) of four provocative future scenarios set in 2050 (Ormerod et al., 2024). Our findings from a large-scale pilot study involving 120 event, tourism and hospitality professionals reveal that initial pessimism and fear of the unknown closes down productive thinking about the future, but that group conversation can mediate this effect. The approach is now being explored within the Portuguese context through collaboration with Albufeira municipal council to examine the future of their event-tourism portfolio strategy.

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Digitalisation,Tourism futures,Coastal tourism