Regenerative Rathlin: Designing tourism futures for small island communities.

This research is situated on the island of Rathlin – Northern Ireland’s only inhabited off-shore island. Its 160-resident strong community welcomes approx. 40,000 visitors per annum. Tourism is, thus, big business on the island, which inadvertently brings with it considerable challenges. This research takes an interdisciplinary, longitudinal, multi-stakeholder and design-thinking approach. The overall aim of this research is to explore pathways for regenerative tourism development on Rathlin Island. Specific research objectives are to 1) appreciate and study islanders’ voices in relation to Rathlin Island tourism development over time, incl. their aspirations and concerns; 2) to explore and design new, possible futures for a regenerative Rathlin; and 3) to understand and examine systemic and relational enablers and barriers to regenerative tourism development on the island.