prof.dr. MAJ (Machiel) Lamers

Machiel Lamers is a Personal Professor of Tourism and Environmental Change at the Environmental Policy Group of Wageningen University in the Netherlands. His research interests are in the fields of sustainable tourism, nature conservation, climate adaptation and environmental policy and governance. He leads research projects on the governance of sustainable tourism and (global/regional) environmental change in coastal and marine destinations, including both the Arctic and Antarctic region, the Caribbean and Indonesia. He obtained his PhD from Maastricht University with a dissertation on the sustainability challenges and regulation of tourism development in Antarctica. He has been working at WUR since 2010 as a researcher and a lecturer in the BSc Tourism and the MSc Tourism, Environment and Society.

Lamers is currently leading the international ANTARC-SHIP (2023-2027) and the TRANS-ACT projects (2026-2028), both funded by NWO, and focusing on the drivers, impacts and regulation of Antarctic tourism. He also has a leading role in the INREEF programme, funded by the Wageningen Global Sustainability Programme, focusing on the role of tourism in the functioning and governance of Marine Protected Areas in Indonesia and the Caribbean. As an expert in polar tourism, Lamers is in the steering group of the World Meteorological Organisation’s (WMO) Polar Coupled Analysis and Prediction for Services (PCAPS) programme, focusing in the improvement and the impact of environmental forecasting services for users in the Polar Regions.

Selected publications:

Lamers, M., Steins, N. A., & van Bets, L. (2024). Combining polar cruise tourism and science practices. Annals of Tourism Research, 107, 103794.

Lamers, M., Ljubicic, G., Thoman, R., Carrasco, J., Dawson, J., Heinrich, V. J., ... & Stewart, E. J. (2024). Tailored Investments Needed to Support Weather, Water, Ice, and Climate Services in the Polar Regions. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 105(3), E645-E650.

Lamers, M., Van der Duim, R., & Spaargaren, G. (2017). The relevance of practice theories for tourism research. Annals of Tourism Research, 62, 54-63.

Lamers, M., Van der Duim, R., Van Wijk, J., Nthiga, R. (2014). Governing Conservation Tourism Partnerships in Kenya. Annals of Tourism Research 48: 250-265.

Hegger, D., Lamers, M., Van Zeijl-Rozema, A. & Dieperink, C. (2012). Conceptualising knowledge co-production in climate change adaptation projects: success conditions and levers for action. Environmental Science & Policy 18: 52-65.