8 Sustainability Paradoxes: Research-Teaching Nexus

Dr Susann Power presents how her research on sustainability paradoxes in tourism is directly embedded into teaching, creating powerful opportunities for students to engage with real-world dilemmas. Her work, published in Tourism Management alongside international collaborators, examined how industry leaders made sense of paradoxes such as: Can tourism be sustainable if people continue to fly? Is sustainability compromised by the need to deliver positive customer experiences? And how can the right to travel be balanced with the limits of perpetual growth?

Dr Power uses these same paradoxes as the basis for undergraduate and postgraduate learning activities. At undergraduate level, students in the Contemporary Issues in Hospitality Management module critically debate these questions, preparing concise position statements which they present and defend in class. This approach mirrors the professional communication demands and also develops core ESD competencies such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration.

At postgraduate level, Dr Power has designed a new module, Operationalising Sustainable Tourism, where students explore paradoxes through workshops and a “sustainability paradox hackathon.” Working in groups, they interrogate case studies, develop management recommendations, and submit both collective reports and individual reflections. This assessment model encourages both solution-oriented thinking and critical engagement with complex sustainability challenges.

By integrating her research directly into teaching, Dr Power demonstrates the potential of the research–teaching nexus to enrich student learning. Students are exposed to current debates in sustainable tourism and actively develop the skills, perspectives, and analytical capacities required to navigate the paradoxes shaping the future of the industry.