Scale, change and resilience in community tourism planning

Resilience and sustainability: a complementary relationship? Towards a practical conceptual model for the sustainability–resilience nexus in tourism

“…The concept of resilience requires adaptive alternatives to address threats from a full range of natural or human-induced crises and uncertainties, including those precipitated by frequent unpredictable events and longer term incremental hazards associated with climate change. Resilience demands adaptability and systems thinking within the wider socio-ecological system (Cochrane, 2010;Lew, 2014;Strickland-Munro et al, 2010;Bosak, 2016). However, while resilience can be considered an attribute that mitigates uncertainty and unpredictability through the adoption of adaptive social and business practices, change must be considered through the SES lens (McCool, Freimund, & Breen, 2015).…”

“…Resilience in the tourism sector has been an increasing focus of academic endeavour, including conceptual discussions (Cochrane, 2010;Lew, 2014;McKercher, 1999;Bosak, 2016) and application to tourism case studies (Becken, 2013;Biggs, 2011;Espiner & Becken, 2014;Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004;Orchiston, 2013). Faulkner (1999) suggests that chaos can rapidly envelop tourism activities due to the complexity of tourism systems and their inherent vulnerability to external threats, such as natural hazards, or social, political and economic crises (including war, pandemic and economic crises).…”

“…We also ask if "resilience" may usurp sustainability in the discourse of tourism business enterprise or if resilience can be accommodated as an increasingly important part of the sustainability discourse. While some scholars have implied that resilience may be a new way to conceptualise sustainability (Carpenter, Walker, Anderies, & Abel, 2001;Lew, 2014;McCool et al, 2013;Miller et al, 2010;Moyle, McLennan, Ruhanen, & Weiler, 2014;Strickland-Munro et al, 2010;Walker et al, 2004), we propose that the two concepts deviate in important ways which, in the interests of both theory and practice, need to be critically explored.…”

“…While not unproblematic, "resilience" -the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change (Folke et al, 2010;Walker, Holling, Carpenter, & Kinzig, 2004) -has recently emerged as a potentially useful framework through which to understand the NBT system and characterise relationships between conservation, community and enterprise (Becken, 2013;Biggs, 2011;Lew, 2014;Strickland-Munro, Allison, & Moore, 2010). A critical aspect of resilience is adaptation (Cochrane, 2010;Nelson, Adger, & Brown, 2007), or the ability (in this case of tourism-reliant communities or businesses) to renew or reorganise in the face of conditions that make previous modus operandi untenable.…”

“…Although resilience has been characterised as a survival attribute -future-oriented and integrative (Lew, 2014;McCool, 2015), there is no guarantee that the decisions communities make in the interests of maintaining the short to medium term economic viability of their tourism enterprises will lead to outcomes that are desired and sustainable in the long term.…”