Dr Steve Taylor

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Director and Associate Professor

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e: Steve Taylor

Current research

Steve’s current workload is centred on project management and development, consultancy and academic research. With a track record of securing funding for projects, the development of tourism and outdoor recreation projects through funding streams such as Horizon 2020, ERASMUS+ and UKRI is a central part of his duties.

He has been centrally involved in three of CRTR’s other recent projects: ‘T-Crisis NAV’, a trans-national Erasmus+ strategic partnership with six partner countries to develop skills to help tourism SMEs navigate their way through crisis; ‘Exploring a Regenerative Tourism Approach to Community Development in Scotland & Ireland’, partnering in a Royal Irish Academy bilateral networking grant project with Munster Technological University; and ‘The Coast that Shaped the World’, in which the centre led an ERDF-funded regional consortium to uncover stories deeply rooted in place and of significance to locals. The aim of this project, and indeed most of our projects, is to encourage people to travel to less well-visited areas, helping to sustain local communities and businesses.

New projects for 2023-4 include:

‘Tourism (In)justice: Rendering a Spatial Justice Approach for Tourism’, funded through UKRI. Led by Dr Anna de Jong at the University of Glasgow, the centre is a partner, along with researchers in Spain and Sweden, in a five-year collaboration to understand the form and process of (in)justice as it unfolds within specific place-based contexts, rendering a new conceptual framework for tourism research.
‘Developing rural community collaborations to integrate community assets with healthcare systems to reduce place-based health inequalities’. Funded through UKRI and led by Dr Sara Bradley at the University of South Wales, the centre will be working with Highlands’ partners on a project to develop and test a replicable collaborative model for integrating rural community assets with the statutory healthcare system with the aim of reducing rural place-based health inequalities.

Steve has been involved in the development of the Slow Adventure® marketing concept since 2014. Having developed the ‘Slow Adventure in Northern Territories’ Interreg project and been a co-founder of Slow Adventure Ltd, he remains a staunch advocate of the slow adventure ethos.

The Adventure Tourism Research Association, founded by CRTR in 2013, is co-ordinated by Steve, in collaboration with Professor Peter Varley and Dr Jelena Farkić, both former employees of the centre.

Qualifications

PhD in Tourism, University of Otago, New Zealand

MSc (with Distinction) in Rural and Regional Resources Planning, University of Aberdeen

BA (Hons) in Geography, University of Leeds

Background

Steve has a background in sustainable travel. He worked for the public sector for five years developing transport policy, writing successful European funding applications and managing projects such as the Interreg IIIC ‘Concept’ sustainable transport project. A move into the private sector, working as Principal Consultant for Capita Symonds, saw him developing further project management experience in the sustainable transport sector. At this time he developed a great passion for mountain biking.

Seeking his next challenge, Steve left the UK to undertake his adventure tourism PhD in New Zealand. His thesis was entitled “Extending the Dream Machine’: Understanding Dedicated Participation in Mountain Biking. Using a qualitative method of in-depth interviews and general induction analysis, he interviewed mountain bikers in New Zealand and the UK to try to understand the range of psychological, sociological and physiological factors, along with site characteristics and information sources, which influence their participation.

Working a season in Whistler kindled Steve’s other outdoor passion, skiing. His other interests include hiking, winter mountaineering, travel and contemporary literature.

Research interests

Mountain biking

Sustainable travel/transport

The development of mountain biking

Psychological dimensions of being and recreating in wild spaces

Recent Publications

Langenbach, M., Mao, P. and Taylor, S. (2024) The Digital Transition and Use of Mountain Spaces. Journal of Alpine Research, 111-3, 2024, https://doi.org/10.4000/rga.12625.

Lüthje, M., Vainikka, V., Taylor, S., Macaulay, B., Bryce, R. and Puhakka-Tarvainen (2023). Towards an ethical tourism recovery in Northern peripheries, Finnish Journal of Tourism Research, 19: 2/2023, https://doi.org/10.33351/mt.130489.

Taylor, S., Burrow, C. and Button, S. (2023) Challenging hegemonic velocipedic modality in the great outdoors: The seemingly inexorable rise of the electric mountain bike, Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, Volume 43, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jort.2023.100684.

Soriano Flores, E., Prola, T.A, Halldórsdóttir, I.H. and Taylor, S. (2023) Diagnosing Training Needs in European Tourism SMEs: The TC-NAV Project for Managing and Overcoming Virulent Crises. Kurdish Studies, 11 (2).

Farkić, J., Taylor, S. and Bellshaw, S.M. (2023) Slow adventure in remote and rural areas – Creating and narrating the tourism product. In M. Koscak and T. O’Rourke (Eds.), Ethical and Responsible Tourism: Managing Sustainability in Local Tourism Destinations, Second Edition (95-107). Abingdon (UK): Routledge.

Flannery. W., Ounanian, K., Toonen, H., van Tatenhove, J., Murtagh, B., Ferguson, L., Delaney, A., Kenter, J., Azzopardi, E., Pita, C., Mylona, D., Witteveen, L., Hansen, C.J., Howells, M., Vegas Macias, J., Lamers, M., Sousa, L., Ferreira da Silva, A.M., Taylor, S., Roio, M., Karro, K. and Saimre, T. (2022) Steering Resilience in Coastal and Marine Cultural Heritage. Maritime Studies. DOI: 10.1007/s40152-022-00265-2.

Ferreira da Silva, M., Vegas Macias, J., Taylor, S., Ferguson, L., Flannery, W., Lamers, M., Costa, C., Pita, C., Martins, F. and Sousa, L. P. (2022) Tourism and Coastal & Maritime Cultural Heritage: A Dual Relation. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, DOI: 10.1080/14766825.2022.2073825.

Taylor, S. and Carr, A. (2021) ‘Living in the Moment’: Mountain Bikers’ Search for the Flow Experience. Annals of Leisure Research, DOI: 10.1080/11745398.2021.1974906.

Farkić, J., Isailovic, G., & Taylor, S. (2021). Forest bathing as a mindful tourism practice. Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights, 2(2), DOI: 10.1016/j.annale.2021.100028.

Taylor, S. and Sand, M. (2021) Doubles, drops and ditches: Deconstructing the art of the mountain bike trail-builder. Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, 33, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jort.2020.100364.

Cater, C., Albayrak, T., Caber, M. and Taylor, S. (2020) Flow, Satisfaction and Storytelling: A Causal Relationship? Evidence from Scuba Diving in Turkey. Current Issues in Tourism, DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2020.1803221

Farkić, J., Filep, S. and Taylor, S. (2020) Shaping tourists’ psychological wellbeing through guided slow adventures. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2020.1789156.

Varley, P.J., Huijbens, E.H., Taylor, S. and Laven, D. (2020) Slow Adventure: From Natural Concept to Consumer Desire. Östersund : Mid Sweden University (Rapportserien / European Tourism Research Institute 2020:2).

Farkić, J., Taylor, S. and Bellshaw, S.M. (2020) Slow adventure in remote and rural areas – Creating and narrating the tourism product. In M. Koscak and T. O’Rourke (Eds.), Ethical and Responsible Tourism: Managing Sustainability in Local Tourism Destinations. Abingdon (UK): Routledge.

Conference Presentations

Taylor, S. (2022) A regenerative tourism approach to community development in Scotland. Invited keynote speaker at Sustainable Arctic Tourism, Inari, Lapland April 2023.

Taylor, S. (2022) Slow Adventure: An Ethical Model for Tourist Behaviour. Invited speaker at the Slow Tourism Forum, Generalitat de Catalunya, May 2022, Dead Sea, Jordan.

Taylor, S. (2015) The role of biking in the regional economic development: a case study of Scotland. Bike Alpe Adria Conference, March 2015, Dobrovo, Slovenia – invited speaker.