Tourism is frequently described as the world's "peace industry" because of the sector's potential to bring people together. At the same time, empirical studies show that tourism's contribution to peace is mixed. To explore this question, this project focuses on the role of tourism in the highly contested Israeli-Palestinian context. The project is currently examining small-scale tourism ventures in the Bethlehem and Ramallah (Palestinian Territories). Previous work in this project has looked at similar small-scale ventures in the Israeli towns of Nazareth as well as Jisr az-Zarqa.
Selected publications (articles, books, book chapters):
- Gelbman, A. & Laven, D. (2016). Re-envisioning community-based heritage tourism in the old city of Nazareth. Journal of Heritage Tourism, vol. 11, pp. 105-125.
- Hammami, F. & Laven, D. (2017). Rethinking heritage from peace : reflections from the Palestinian-Israeli context. In Heritage and peacebuilding. Woodbridge : Boydell & Brewer (Heritage matters). pp. 137-148.
- Laven, D. (2015). Heritage development and community resilience : Insights for the era of climate change. In The Future of Heritage as Climates Change : Loss, Adaptation and Creativity. New York, NY : Routledge (Key Issues in Cultural Heritage). pp. 167-179.
- Shepherd, J. & Laven, D. (2020). Hostels in Hostile Territory : Tourist Spaces of Transformative Dialogue in the Israeli-Palestinian Context. In Role and Impact of Tourism in Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation. Hershey : IGI Global. pp. 195-217.
- Shepherd, J. & Laven, D. (2020). Providing counter-narratives : the positive role of hostels in the Israeli-Palestinian context. Tourism Geographies, vol. 22: 4-5, pp. 848-871.
- Shepherd, J. , Laven, D. & Shamma, L. (2020). Autoethnographic journeys through contested spaces. Annals of Tourism Research, vol. 84.
- Stenvall, A. , Laven, D. & Gelbman, A. (2017). The Influence of Social Entrepreneurship in Tourism on an Arab Village in Israel. In Social Entrepreneurship and Tourism: Philosophy and Practice. Cham : Springer (Tourism on the Verge). pp. 279-293.
- Walters, D. (ed.) , Laven, D. (ed.) & Davis, P. (ed.) (2017). Heritage and peacebuilding. Woodbridge : Boydell & Brewer (Heritage matters Vol. 21).
