Tourist towns on the edge: conceptualising vulnerability and resilience in a protected area tourism system

The Franz Josef and Fox Glacier townships in New Zealand's “Glacier Country”, neighbouring Westland National Park, are remote tourist attractions facing multiple future sustainability challenges. Despite their distance from their markets, they attract 600,000 visitors annually and are fundamental to the district's economy. However, issues of geographic isolation are compounded by major threats of flooding and earthquake, rising fuel prices and climate change scenarios which imply serious glacier melting. Using 24 stakeholder interviews, this study evaluates susceptibility to change at multiple scales which could undermine the economic and social longevity of this iconic destination. Adopting a human–environment systems perspective, it utilises the concepts of vulnerability and resilience to examine dimensions of change and response that have shaped the community, conservation and tourism in this peripheral region. It finds high levels of vulnerability do not necessarily determine low levels of resilience, nor vice versa. Rather than mutually exclusive, vulnerability and resilience are discrete, but highly compatible concepts, offering much to the analysis of protected area tourism facing global change. The paper notes the potential guidance and governance role of the protected area in building resilience, and equally the threat to the protected area's integrity if tourism is compromised by its vulnerabilities.     

迈向可持续目标的中国生态旅游发展研究

生态旅游是自然保护地体系建设、国土空间保护利用、美丽中国等重点生态文明工程建设的重要载体。本文对生态旅游发展研究进行了深入分析,探讨了迈向可持续发展目标下中国生态旅游发展研究需要关注的重点领域。研究认为：生态旅游对于联合国可持续发展目标（Sustainable Development Goals, SDG）实现具有多维促进作用,大众生态旅游在现代化管理制度、技术规范和生态文明的中国话语体系中具有较强的适用性。当代中国生态旅游发展具有与以往国外后工业化时期生态旅游完全不同的时代特点,外部环境和关联要素正在不断促使生态旅游发展寻求新的发展路径。自然生态、地域功能、承载能力和经济发展共同勾画出当代中国生态旅游的发展图景,未来研究需要建立以资源环境容量为底线、以生态游憩机会图谱和时空匹配为规律、以空间治理和现代化管控为提升、以强约束低损耗的政策和技术标准为配套的四位一体发展体系,从而为中国实现生态环境严格保护和经济社会可持续发展多元目标提供支撑。     

Indigenous legacy for building resilience: A case study of Taiwanese mountain river ecotourism

Tourist destinations as social-ecological systems face growing challenges to build resilience to cope with various disruptions. This research explores how disadvantaged Indigenous communities in Taiwan, especially those located in typhoon-sensitive and geologically fragile areas, developed resilience as tourist destinations. It applies empirical data from Indigenous River Closure, a movement which aims to develop river ecotourism and build resilience in the face of growing uncertainty. The research applies mixed methods, including in-depth interview, news-archive review, and participatory observation, with an intention for primary data and secondary data to complement one another.Based on the intertwined concepts of resilience, adaptability, transformability, and self-reorganization, the results show that River Closure initiated from within those communities (endogenous) seems to build greater resilience in ecotourism. At the same time, cases instigated by outsiders (exogenous) are not without potential to be successful, but there is a need to cautiously build consensus and increase capacity in the collaborative process with outside resources.The success of river ecotourism in a sensitive area depends on the level of social capital. It plays a key role in mobilizing community resources to adapt to uncertainty, reorganizing relations between the community and tourism development, and transforming River Closure from a community-based response to exploitation, to a robust Indigenous movement. However, while inherent social capital is proved to be a strong essence for community actions, it is becoming rare in modern society. Thus bolstering social capital is core to the exogenous approach for building resilience in the tourism sector.     

Social capital: An investment towards community resilience in the collaborative natural resources management of community-based tourism schemes

Community-based tourism projects appear to be the most favoured option for enhancing community livelihoods through the collaborative management of communal natural resources in land reformed areas in South Africa. A case study approach was adopted to establish the role of social capital in building community resilience through the management of common pool natural resources. Using the assemblages and systemic-resilience theories, this paper establishes which relationships between social capital and community resilience are best for pursuing successful community-based tourism schemes. Lessons were drawn from Somkhanda Community Game Reserve in the Gumbi community, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. The paper identifies three main community resilience shocks: governance, financial and skills. It notes that strong social capital can promote the realisation of community resilience in communal natural resources management. It further points to the need for avoiding environmental romanticisation, as there is a need to focus on the complexities involved in managing communal natural resources in land reformed communities.     

Applying the resilience principles for sustainable ecotourism development: A case study of the Nakdong Estuary,South Korea

When studying sustainable ecotourism, the ecotourism system can be better understood as a complex association of various elements that affects the local society and wildlife habitats. The purpose of this study is to plan an ecotourism system for the wise ecotourism resource management of estuary wetlands by using a resilience principle-based systems thinking approach. This study suggests an integrated management plan that considers diversity, connectivity, learning, participation, and polycentric governance to solve universal and important issues, such as estuary dam removal, urbanization, and natural resource use in the estuary's social-ecological system. The ecotourism system plans suggested in this study include minimizing ecological conflict and load through an improved sense of responsibility among stakeholders and strengthened protective activities. The results of this study suggest appropriate roles for various stakeholders in the management of tourism resources that can be used to establish new guidelines for ecotourism destination planning.     

Assessing and planning resilience in tourism

This research note reflects the lack of work on tourism governance and resilience with regard to interrelated impacts of global environmental change. For tourism management, assessing and planning resilience is of growing importance since change processes and their interrelations have become more complex in a globalized, accelerated world, placing tourism under pressure to respond and adapt to various factors. Adaptation and transformation processes to changing environmental, social and economic conditions require initiatives by various tourism actors with different functions in the tourism supply chain, and on different scales of governance, to be able to assess, plan and manage resilience over time. Resilience as a concept has much explanatory power that requires more attention in tourism research, both from a quantitative network governance and a more qualitatively informed research perspective.     

Climate change in Northern Sweden: intra-regional perceptions of vulnerability among winter-oriented tourism businesses

Climate change is a potential threat to society and business. Although research has noted that the tourism sector may be robust on the macro scale, significant losses at local levels have been suggested. This paper examines Upper Norrland, in Northern Sweden, by measuring the perceptions of winter-oriented tourism entrepreneurs. Their perceptions of potential threats from climate change are assessed, including how entrepreneurs view the future, in terms of climate change impacts and sustainability of the region as a winter-tourism destination. A quantitative survey of entrepreneurs (n = 63) gave responses along geographical and operator dimensions to reveal local differences within the Upper Norrland region, showing the coastland to be perceived as more exposed to change than inland areas. Venue-based businesses see climate change as a higher priority than activity-based, potentially mobile, businesses, regardless of their location. The general perception among businesses is that climate change will not drastically impact the tourism sector over the next 10 years. A basic model for mapping local differences is outlined to stimulate further study of the under-researched intra-regional nuances in climate change and tourism research. A case is made for regional planners to use this tool and to educate local businesses on adaptation techniques.     

Resident perceptions of social–ecological resilience and the sustainability of community-based tourism development in the Commonwealth of Dominica

Despite major investments in community-based tourism to diversify economies, reduce poverty and improve life quality in the Caribbean, little is known about what conditions lead to resilience and sustainability. Sustainability from a resilience theory perspective is the likelihood an existing system of resource use will persist indefinitely without a decline in social and natural resource bases. Undertaking activities to enhance resilience and sustainability improves a system's ability to persevere, adapt and learn to meet challenges from unanticipated economic, political or natural events. This study investigated six communities in the Commonwealth of Dominica, all part of a seven-year community tourism program, and examined residents' perceptions of the social, institutional, economic and ecological resilience of their community, and therefore the resilience and sustainability of community tourism development. It used a new scale using eight steps suggested by Devellis' scale development methodology. Data indicated moderate to low resilience in all four domains across the communities. This suggests that communities should invest in strengthening social bonds, developing capacity in local institutions, in diversifying the tourism product and controlling infrastructure development. Indicators measuring trust, networks, local control, flexible governance, leakage prevention and controlled infrastructure development emerged as important in assessing social–ecological resilience and sustainability.     

Evolution of tourism in a flagship protected area of China

Nature-based tourism in protected areas, which is growing worldwide, offers much potential to enhance biodiversity conservation, poverty alleviation, and ultimately sustainable development. Understanding the evolution of protected areas as tourism destinations and the causes and consequences of changing supply and demand elements is an essential step toward sustainably managing tourism in these critical ecosystems. This research applied the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) model to illustrate and analyze the 30-year evolution of tourism in Wolong Nature Reserve. Being inscribed in UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage programmes, Wolong is a flagship protected area in China. We showed that the Reserve experienced exploration, involvement, and development stages of the TALC before tourism growth was completely halted by the Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008. We systematically investigated the changes related to the evolution of tourism and identified various internal and external driving forces. We examined the dynamics of politics, economy, and tourism growth that might propel the Reserve through the life cycle and identified significant tourism governance structural changes through the stages. The results have implications for sustainable tourism development in China's protected areas and also contribute to a broader and general understanding of the complex relationships between protected areas, sustainable tourism, and community development.     

A report on the Paris Climate Change Agreement and its implications for tourism: why we will always have Paris

Sustained international diplomatic efforts culminated in the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement by 196 countries in December 2015. This paper provides an overview of the key provisions of the agreement that are most relevant to the tourism sector: much strengthened and world-wide participation in greenhouse gas emission reduction ambitions, an enduring framework for increased ambitions over time, improved transparency in emissions reporting and a greater emphasis on climate risk management through adaptation. The declared carbon emission reduction ambitions of the tourism sector and international aviation are found to be broadly compatible with those of the Paris Agreement, however, claims of reduced emission intensity in the tourism sector since 2005 and a roadmap by which emission reduction ambitions for 2020 and 2035 might realistically be achieved both remain equivocal. The need for international tourism leadership to improve sectoral scale emission monitoring capacity to meet the increasing requirements for transparency, convene an assessment of risks from climate change and climate policy, foster greater collaboration on destination climate resilience and accelerate technological, policy and social innovation to put tourism firmly on a pathway to the low-carbon economy are all emphasized, as is the need for dialogue between tourism and tourism researchers.     

Examining the relationship between social capital and community residents' perceived resilience in tourism destinations

A thorough understanding of the influencing factors and mechanisms of community resilience in tourism destinations is vital not only for recovery after disasters but also for strengthening the adaptive capacity of community residents to manage sudden change. This study aims to investigate the roles of bonding, bridging, and linking social capital in enhancing community residents' perceived resilience in tourism destinations. Based on data derived from a survey of 691 residents of China's Dujiangyan scenic areas and Jiuzhai Valley National Park, this study used structural equation modeling to test the relationship between community residents' perceived social capital and resilience in tourism destinations. The findings suggest that the three types of social capital have significantly positive effects on community residents' perceived resilience in tourism destinations. In China's centralized political system, linking social capital is the most important type of social capital in community disaster recovery. An interaction effect between bonding, bridging, and linking social capital is found. This study's results help managers and community residents cultivate social capital, improve community resilience and maintain sustainable tourism development.     

Local perspectives of ecotourism development in Tawushan Nature Reserve, Taiwan

This paper examines local responses to potential ecotourism development in the Tawushan Nature Reserve located in southeastern Taiwan. Community attitude and intention toward four dimensions of ecotourism, including conservation of natural resources, preservation of cultural tradition, sustainable community development, and participation in ecotourism planning and management, were measured. Furthermore, the paper examines whether or not there is congruence between community attitude and intention toward ecotourism development. Analysis is based on data collected using face-to-face questionnaire interviews in two indigenous communities consisting primarily of the Paiwan ethnic group. The study findings show that local people hold generally positive views of the measures necessary to achieve ecotourism; however, their intentions to engage in behaviors to support these measures do not entirely match with their positive views. This suggests that while local residents may support ecotourism development based on international guidelines, their intentions to act will depend on local environmental, social, and politico-economic conditions. It is suggested that issues related to community empowerment, relationship between government and communities, value conflicts introduced by ecotourism development, and the dynamics among and between various community groups will need to be addressed if positive community intention to participate in ecotourism is to be encouraged.     

Co-flourishing: Intertwining community resilience and tourism development in destination communities

This paper contributes to the understanding of community resilience in tourism development in the destination community. Accordingly, we propose a ‘co-flourishing’ framework integrating community resilience and tourism development by mobilising six types of community capital – human, social, natural, physical, financial, and psychological – which strengthen community capacity during disturbances or crises. We argue that the existing understanding of the tourism system tends to be resource-driven and market-oriented. Such approaches neglect the needs of the destination community, which should have adequate resources for its goal of providing a good life for its members. We first review the six forms of community capital and their implications for community resilience, and argue that tourism development has a negative impact on various kinds of community capital – particularly in destination communities. Hence, we propose a co-flourishing framework which advocates a paradigm change in tourism development to cater to the capital needs of the community. The proposed framework highlights practical long-term policy suggestions for tourism development and planning. We identify further necessary research is needed to accumulate empirical evidence to better apply the co-flourishing framework in various development scenarios in both developing and developed economies.     

Surf Tourism and Sustainable Development in Indo-Pacific Islands. II. Recreational Capacity Management and Case Study

Recreational capacity is a function of the natural and social environment, the activity concerned, and the management regime. Indo-Pacific surf destinations with cheap and open access and no capacity management have experienced crowding, crime, pollution and price collapses. Many island surf breaks can handle only a few surfers at once because of the shape of the reefs. A crowding factor may be conceptualised as the proportion of rideable waves each surfer is forced to cede to another boardrider. Quota management systems using operator permits need to incorporate the complexity of the environment and the industry, but be equitable enough to gain general acceptance, and simple enough to enforce without dispute. Siberut Island in the Mentawai chain near West Sumatra, Indonesia, is covered by dense tropical rainforest which supports a number of endangered species and has been proposed as a Biosphere Reserve. It is also home to indigenous village communities with traditional social and religious practices. This island is subject to commercial logging and plantation agriculture, and tourism seems to be the only politically realistic economic alternative at present. To provide infrastructure for long-term growth in nature and cultural tourism, an immediate source of tourism revenue is needed. The most immediate option seems to be surf lodges on some of the smaller Mentawai Islands, which have already been largely cleared and are already visited by boat-based surf tour operators. Operators will only invest in lodges if they can acquire preferential rights to particular surf breaks. Hence the recreational capacity of the islands for surf tourism must be determined, and allocated between operators through a management system. Relevant data and one management option are presented here.     

新冠肺炎疫情对中国旅游业的影响及其应对探讨

新冠肺炎疫情给全球旅游业带来了巨大的冲击和挑战,深入探讨疫情对旅游业的影响及应对成为各界关注的重点。本文从居民出游意愿、场所空间容量、市场经营主体、旅游政策等供需关系方面分析了新冠肺炎疫情对中国旅游业的影响。研究表明：（1）疫情对居民出游消费信心、意愿和能力造成较大影响,但潜在出游需求仍然存在。（2）疫情对旅游地空间环境造成较大物理和心理压缩,与旅游关联紧密的文化产业、娱乐业的生产空间容量也受到了间接影响。（3）疫情对旅游产业链、旅游市场主体经营等方面造成了全面且深远的影响。（4）疫情防控常态化下旅游政策供给以“流动管制”和“行业纾困”并重为主。面对疫情的持续影响,建议着重从组织响应、空间响应和企业韧性3个方面进一步强化旅游业应对能力,即：完善业外支撑、业内驱动、业界保障的三位一体组织响应体系;构建旅游目的地（点）-连结（线）-网络结构（网络）的三级协同空间响应机制;从企业组织、产品服务、管理和营销、市场品牌、员工心理等5个方面加强旅游企业韧性建设,以增强中国旅游业恢复发展能力。     

Attention to social issues and CEO duality as enablers of resilience to exogenous shocks in the tourism industry

The tourism literature recognises the importance of resilience to crises, but little is known about how tourism firms become resilient. In particular, the use of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a risk-reduction strategy has been identified as an important gap in the literature. Aiming to fill this gap and adopt a more integrative view, this study examines complementarities between tourism firms' attention to social issues and corporate governance mechanisms in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Supported by the attention-based view and stewardship theory, the findings show that firms' attention to social issues and CEO duality might be associated with higher degrees of firm resilience. If firms have a CSR committee, the presence of CEO duality might leverage firms’ attention to social issues. The findings suggest that corporate governance should not restrict executive flexibility when tourism firms face exogenous shocks if firms pay attention to social issues.     

物候学在旅游地理理论与实践中的应用基础和前景

在20世纪80年代应用地理大发展中应运而生的旅游地理学,因发展历程尚短、理论方法体系不十分健全和完善,对持续快速发展的旅游业支撑乏力,迫切需要从相邻学科吸收养分。物候学与旅游地理学交叉性质明显,可多方面支撑其发展。本文系统梳理了物候学对旅游业的学科支撑作用、具体实践应用领域、服务于旅游业高质量发展的6个维度以及气候变化对物候旅游资源和相关行业的影响。主要结论有：（1）物候概念有助于系统整合旅游系统中自然、人文和社会要素的相关旅游资源,而物候学应用亦可有效提升区域旅游业的服务支持子系统、交通子系统以及医疗健康子系统的效用;（2）物候学在旅游业发展中的实践应用主要涉及利用植物季相进行景观设计、观赏季划分与观赏期预报、体验类生态旅游活动的时间规划、花粉浓度预报与冰雪灾情预警以及旅游线路设计五大方面;（3）物候学可在要素、行业、过程、时空、方位和部门6个维度上服务于旅游业的高质量发展;（4）物候旅游资源和相关产业对于气候变化响应敏感,相关研究人员在未来应注重气候变化对其的风险影响研究,深入分析游客感知、行为反应所受影响,并积极参与中长期产业发展规划以及行业报告编制。从学科发展和产业应用的角度讲,物候学可为旅游学的研究提供自然科学的理论支撑,也为当今气候变化背景下旅游业的可持续发展提供科学指导。     

Hotels in contexts of uncertainty: Measuring organisational resilience

The tourism industry faces multiple changes (economic crises, climate change, technology innovation…). Because of this vulnerability, as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the study of hotel resilience is a key issue for the survival and competitiveness of organisations and destinations. Therefore, this paper proposes a holistic model to measure organisational resilience. To that end, it aims to analyse the determinants of organisational resilience, i.e. predictors of resilience (strategy and change), and to assess how they contribute to hotel resilience and performance. Firstly, the hotel context in the Canary Islands is examined to identify the level of impact, frequency and predictability of each type of change. Secondly, scales development and validation were conducted. Finally, the proposed model is validated. Findings confirm that the strategy and change dimensions have a considerable effect on hotel resilience, which positively influences hotel performance. Discussion provides hotel managers with guidelines to improve organisational resilience and performance.     

The dynamics of tourism discourses and policy in Brazil

This article employs a Foucauldian inspired discourse analysis in order to unveil hidden aspects of the tourism development policy-making process in the UNESCO Espinhaço Range Biosphere Reserve, Brazil. It identifies the emergence of different representations of tourism development and demonstrates the process of social construction of sustainable tourism as an overarching discourse, which incorporates different—sometimes opposing—representations of tourism development to gather the support of people with different backgrounds and interests. However, this research demonstrates that this flexibility caused the sustainable tourism narrative to become a vague and imprecise discourse in the context of the case study, which has been used by the regional elites to conserve the status quo, but disguised as a critical alternative perspective.     

Understanding tourism leaders’ perceptions of risks from climate change: an assessment of policy-making processes in the Maldives using the social amplification of risk framework (SARF)

Coastal tourism destinations are highly vulnerable to climate change risks, including sea-level rise, inundation, and extreme weather events. While such risks pose major challenges to the sustainability of these destinations, they have been insufficiently examined in tourism research. This study uses the social amplification of risk framework as a basis for understanding how climate change risks are perceived and what processes lead to an amplification or attenuation of risk perceptions at management and governance levels. In the context of the extremely low-lying Maldives, 12 leading tourism stakeholders, including representatives of government, industry, and NGOs, were interviewed to gather empirical data on risk perceptions. Results indicate that, while climate change risks are amplified for international audiences, several factors lead to an attenuation of risks for domestic audiences. As a result, local tourism stakeholders are not immediately concerned, and adaptation measures are woefully inadequate to cope with future climate risks. Detailed reference is made to the policy inertia found, the conflicts inherent in playing down risk in order to attract jobs, profitable tourism investment and tourists, and the equally pressing need to stress risks in order to attract expertise and funds to enable adaptation policies to be designed and funded.