Hi there, Coen van Bendegom!
What is your research area?
The focus of my PhD is on visitor monitoring in mountain landscapes through novel spatiotemporal monitoring methods. Mountain landscapes are attractive for nature-based tourism and recreation because of their natural beauty and recreation opportunities, and at the same time fragile and susceptible to environmental damage from visitor use. Monitoring of visitors to mountain landscapes is important as monitoring data gives us information on the use of mountain landscapes, the impact (positive and negative) visitation has, it informs management and policy decisions, and monitoring data can help to facilitate discussions to resolve conflicts that might occur in multifunctional mountain landscapes.
At the moment, visitor monitoring is fragmented and not aligned between mountain landscapes. Novel monitoring methods and tools allow for remote data collection which limits resource intensive field work. My research focuses on integrating passive mobile phone data, remote sensing and public participation geographic information systems (PPGIS) and take an interdisciplinary approach by including social and ecological data, thereby innovating monitoring frameworks.
Tell us about your background
I grew up in The Netherlands and I have a bachelor's degree in Sports Management with a specialization in adventure sports. I worked as an outdoor sports guide/instructor for a little while before continuing my education with a MSc in Leisure Studies at Breda University of Applied Sciences. After completion, I stayed at BUas to teach (mainly research methods) in the BBA Tourism Management, BSc Tourism (with Wageningen University) and BSc Leisure Studies. I combined this with a research position in a project called JOIN, which investigated participation, experience and emotions of visitors to cultural venues such as theaters, concert halls and museums.
As The Netherlands does not have any mountains, I had to travel to explore mountain landscapes. I have always had big dreams of extended travelling. In February 2022, we decided to ship our camper van to Mexico and drive from Mexico to Uruguay in 1.5 years. This journey provided a different lens to learn about tourism and recreation and how it contributes to, and conflicts with, local communities and nature. After the trip, we lived on Vancouver Island in Canada for a year where I taught in the Tourism Management bachelor at Vancouver Island University. This experience confirmed that I wanted to continue my journey in academia and apply for a PhD position.
Who are your supervisors?
Peter Fredman and Daniel Laven from Mid Sweden University.
Are you employed in a project?
Yes, I'm funded by the European Commission through the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions network in a project called VIMAS. VIMAS stands for Visitor Monitoring and Management in Protected and Recreational Areas: New challenges, novel solutions for the Anthropocene. It's a project with a total of ten PhD students at seven host universities in six Nordic/Baltic countries. Learn more about the project here: