Human flourishing,tourism transformation and COVID-19: a conceptual touchstone

Abstract

As the planet remains in the grips of COVID-19 and amidst enforced lockdowns and restrictions, and possibly the most profound economic downturn since the Great Depression, the resounding enquiry asks—what will the new normal look like? And, in much the same way, tourism aficionados, policy makers and communities are asking a similar question—what will the tourism landscape, and indeed the world, look like after the pandemic? As casualties from the crisis continue to fall by the wayside, the rethinking about what an emergent tourism industry might resemble is on in earnest. Many are hopeful that this wake-up call event is an opportunity to reshape tourism into a model that is more sustainable, inclusive and caring of the many stakeholders that rely on it. And some indicators, though not all, point in that direction. In line with this, the concept of ‘human flourishing’ offers merits as an alternative touchstone for evaluating the impacts of tourism on host communities. Human flourishing has a long genesis and its contemporary manifestation, pushed by COVID-19 and applied to travel and tourism, further expands the bounds of its application. Human flourishing has the potential to offer more nuanced sets of approaches by which the impact of tourism on host communities might be measured. The challenge remaining is how to develop robust indices to calibrate human flourishing policy successes.     

The transformational festival as a subversive toolbox for a transformed tourism: lessons from Burning Man for a COVID-19 world

Abstract

Examining transformational festivals can offer conceptual resources for a transformation of tourism into a more responsible and sustainable practice. By thinking together two usually distinct scholarly treatments of “transformation”—those of transformational tourism and those of transformational festivals—the COVID-19 pandemic can itself also be treated as a spatiotemporal threshold for the transformation of the travel industry. This approach can also help deconstruct the mechanisms that sustain deleterious aspects of tourism’s guest-host divide. As borders reopen and mobility and recreation recommences, the capacity of transformational festivals—both within and beyond their highly porous time-spaces– to transform their participants offer lessons for the blurring, if not the outright obliteration of the demarcation between guests and hosts. The creative and pro-social responses of members of one such transformational festival culture—Burning Man– to this and past crises are presented as examples for how values such as participation and civic responsibility may help people overcome shared conditions of hardship, and support more sustainable tourism practices in the post-COVID-19 world. Such subversive inter-subjective inversions may bring the recognition, in-itself, and production, for-itself, of a shared humanity of co-creators and participants in not just ephemeral, but accretive transformational social and environmental projects.     

Lessons from COVID-19 can prepare global tourism for the economic transformation needed to combat climate change

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the cessation of almost all international travel in the first half of 2020. A return to pre-pandemic growth patterns will take time and depend on the depth and extent of the recession sparked by COVID-19. The recovery phase will overlap with global efforts to deal with the evolving climate crisis. For the tourism industry to thrive in a future world it must look beyond the temptation of adopting strategies based on a return to the pre-COVID-19 normal of the past and instead seek to understand how it should respond to the emerging transformation of the global economy to carbon neutrality. Many of the lessons that emerged from the pandemic can be applied to strategies to deal with climate change. Of most interest is the success of strategies such as “flattening the curve”. Application of similar strategies plus adoption of the circular economy model to wind back Green House Gas emissions will help avert the global environmental disaster that will occur if global temperatures continue to increase. These strategies point to what a future carbon-neutral economic production system might look like, the path to which could offer the tourism industry numerous opportunities to transform from the current model that favours a high resource consumption model to one that is environmentally friendly and resource neutral.     

Reconnecting tourism after COVID-19: the paradox of alterity in tourism areas

Abstract

One of the transformations induced by the almost complete halt of tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a turning of the tourism sectors to a greater orientation towards their host communities. The enclavic tendencies of tourism areas, along with a multilayered approach to alterity gives insight into ongoing changes in the Quebec, Canada, tourism industry that have been enhanced by the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes points to a relinking of tourism to the needs of the host communities as part of a survival strategy in a time when there are no tourists, and could become, in the long run, a resilience strategy. On the other hand, there is a possibility of a reinforcement of the alterity and a further delinking of tourism in a “6?foot-tourism world” where sanitary safety would be at the core of a closed and controlled tourism development.     

Post COVID-19 ecological and social reset: moving away from capitalist growth models towards tourism as Buen Vivir

Abstract

Tourism has been one of the industries most highly affected by COVID-19. The COVID-19 global pandemic is an ‘unprecedented crisis’ and has exposed the pitfalls of a hyper consumption model of economic growth and development. The scale of immediate economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic has shattered the myth of ‘catch up development’ and ‘perpetual growth’. The Crisis has brought unintended degrowth, presenting opportunities for an economic and social ‘reset’. In terms of long-term thinking post COVID-19, it is time to change the parameters of how we imagine a trajectory going forward, to prefigure possibilities for contesting capitalist imperatives that ‘there is no alternative’. In relation to tourism, the pandemic provides an opportunity for reimaging tourism otherwise, away from exploitative models that disregard people, places, and the natural environment, and towards a tourism that has positive impacts. Non-western alternatives to neo-colonial and neoliberal capitalism, such the South American concept of ‘Buen Vivir’, can help us to shift priorities away from economic growth, towards greater social and environmental wellbeing, and meaningful human connections. Taking a Buen Vivir approach to tourism will continue the degrowth momentum, for transformative change in society within the earth’s physical limits. Yet Buen Vivir also redefines the parameters of how we understand ‘limits’. In limiting unsustainable practices in development and tourism, a focus on Buen Vivir actually creates growth in other areas, such as social and environmental wellbeing, and meaningful human connection. Buen Vivir can reorient the tourism industry towards localised tourism, and slow tourism because the principles of Buen Vivir require these alternatives to be small-scale, local and benefiting host communities as well as tourists to increase the wellbeing for all.     

COVID-19, indigenous peoples and tourism: a view from New Zealand

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact is predicted to be long-lasting with intergenerational impacts for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples offer untapped potential for understanding how we are shaping resilient solutions to COVID-19 and similar threats in the future. In New Zealand, the Māori people occupy diverse leadership and occupational roles throughout society. As a result of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) they are recognised, through Acts of Parliament, as government partners who work in governance and planning processes, including the COVID-19 response. Such recognition can result in the inclusion of Māori values such as whanaungatanga (kinship and belonging), kaitiakitanga (environmental guardianship and responsibility) and manaakitanga (respect, care, and hospitality) within policy and Acts of Parliament. Māori leaders and spokespeople are stressing that environmental and social welfare needs of all communities should be prioritised as part of the COVID-19 solution and that tourism responses cannot be separated from social needs. Government responses and planning efforts that incorporate diverse cultural values ensure more equitable futures and positive experiences for tourism providers, travellers and the hosts. In this way Indigenous-informed approaches would positively contribute to transforming business, health and education for a more positive global society.     

A mindful shift: an opportunity for mindfulness-driven tourism in a post-pandemic world

Abstract

Many see the COVID-19 pandemic as a turning point for tourism, a chance to reflect on the pressing environmental and socio-economic concerns of the industry, and an opportunity to pinpoint a more desirable direction. However, for tourism to revive as a less impactful and more meaningful industry, more mindful consumers are needed to take factual benefits from the gravity of the current situation. Mindfulness as a practice of bringing a certain quality of attention to moment-by-moment experiences has become an important asset for individuals to cope with the problems of modern life. It is even seen as a significant driver of lifestyle change in Western societies, resulting in an increasing number of more conscious consumers and mindfulness-driven products and services. The COVID-19 pandemic is a wake-up call and opportunity for the tourism industry to embrace the mindfulness movement, trusting in its capacity to reflect on the current problems and to pave a new way forward towards more compassionate and meaningful tourism for both hosts and guests.     

The COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity for escaping the unsustainable global tourism path

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has halted mobility globally on an unprecedented scale, causing the neoliberal market mechanisms of global tourism to be severely disrupted. In turn, this situation is leading to the decline of certain mainstream business formats and, simultaneously, the emergence of others. Based on a review of recent crisis recovery processes, the tourism sector is likely to rebound from this sudden market shock, primarily because of various forms of government interventions. Nevertheless, although policymakers seek to strengthen the resilience of post-pandemic tourism, their subsidies and other initiatives serve to maintain a fundamentally flawed market logic. The crisis has, therefore, brought us to a fork in the road – giving us the perfect opportunity to select a new direction and move forward by adopting a more sustainable path. Specifically, COVID-19 offers public, private, and academic actors a unique opportunity to design and consolidate the transition towards a greener and more balanced tourism. Tourism scholars, for example, can take a leading role in this by redesigning their curriculum to prepare future industry leaders for a more responsible travel and tourism experience.     

COVID-19 is expanding global consciousness and the sustainability of travel and tourism

Abstract

The sustainable development model has largely failed to address the social and environmental challenges of the 21^st century. True sustainability will only occur when it is valued as a part of the taken-for-granted daily life of individuals and cultures across the globe. This has not yet happened because humanity has not evolved a global consciousness quickly enough to match the global advances in telecommunications and transportation technologies that have created a socially and economically ever-shrinking planet. Travel and tourism contributes to the expansion of global consciousness, although only in a haphazard and unintentional manner. The COVID-19 pandemic is a result of planetary time-space compression and is forcing an expansion in human consciousness that will make humankind better able to address global problems. There will still be considerable diversity on the planet, as now, but the pandemic will stimulate growing numbers of people, businesses and governments to adopt new ways of thinking, behaving and operating that are more closely aligned with the goals of sustainable development. This could be further enhanced if travel and tourism were to adopt the expansion and awakening of global conscious as a fundamental and transformational value in the products and experiences that it offers.     

Evolutionary economic geography: reflections from a sustainable tourism perspective

ABSTRACT

Evolutionary economic geography (EEG) is receiving increasing attention from tourism geographers with over 30 publications explicitly incorporating EEG into tourism between 2011 and 2016. Many of these contributions are conceptual, which is not surprising given the novelty of EEG within economic geography, in general, and tourism, in particular. However, a sizeable number of these are built on detailed case studies, using EEG as an analytical lens rather than as a conceptual point of departure. Thus, many tourism researchers have found that EEG has great potential for understanding change in tourism destinations. In this Research Frontiers paper I critically reflect on this early research of EEG in tourism geographies from a sustainable development perspective. In the cases presented, EEG offers a fresh understanding of two related challenges in each of two separate aspects of sustainable tourism development. First, pro-growth governance models can be disrupted by engaged local stakeholders in order to make tangible sustainability gains but these gains remain precarious over time as pro-growth governance models prove tenacious in the very long-term. Second, regional institutional legacies hamper new path emergence in two ways – through institutional inertia which keeps the region's focus on past success in other sectors and through the (possibly competing) institutional imperatives of the dominant and emerging tourism sub-sectors or sub-regions. These challenges are illustrated through two complementary Canadian cases drawn from the extant literature – the mass tourism destination of Niagara and the resort community of Whistler. I highlight how a sustainable tourism perspective can also help to critique EEG theory and empirics in line with other recent political economy critiques in economic geography. I conclude that sustainable tourism, at its best, is an established reflexive lens which will help to develop, validate, and challenge aspects of EEG theory within tourism studies, in particular, and economic geography, in general.     

Reconsidering global mobility – distancing from mass cruise tourism in the aftermath of COVID-19

Abstract

The mass cruise tourism industry (MCTI) is inscribed in a neoliberal production of tourism space that promotes the economic, sociocultural and environmental marginalization of cruise destinations. With cruise tourism halted as a result of the COVID-19, but likely to resume in 2021, I question the relevance of this form of tourism and propose future development alternatives aligned with deglobalisation and degrowth of the industry. Power relations with destinations communities can be critiqued using the concepts of global mobility and local mobility to show that the former, imperative for the deployment of mass cruise tourism, is a weakness for the industry in a post-pandemic perspective of reduced mobility. Destinations must use the industry’s dependence on global mobility as leverage to transform the balance of power in their favor and promote local mobility. They must embrace radical solutions to take control of their territory to favor a transition from “Growth for development” to “Degrowth for liveability”. Host territories, relying on national and regional governance, should gradually ban or restrict the arrival of mega-cruise ships, implement policies that promote the development of a niche cruise tourism industry (NCTI) with small ships and develop a fleet controlled by local actors.     

新冠肺炎对旅游业的影响：研究进展与展望

通过对Web of Science数据库中1435篇文献的梳理,回顾和评述了“COVID-19对旅游业影响”的早期研究进展。结果表明,新冠肺炎直接威胁人的生命健康,加剧了旅游者的负面情绪和感知风险,降低了旅游者的出游意愿,并改变了以往的行为模式。新冠肺炎通过旅游者在旅游目的地、旅游企业、旅游交通之间传播,从而对旅游系统产生全面、持久的影响,对全球旅游业造成史无前例的巨大冲击。同时,新冠肺炎还引发了对于旅游业发展方式和增长模式的反思,转型发展成为后新冠时代全球旅游业恢复重建的重要手段。最后,从“目标—要素—保障”视角对未来研究进行了展望。     

COVID-19: from temporary de-globalisation to a re-discovery of tourism?

Abstract

The processes of globalisation and time-space compression, driven mainly by the neoliberal agenda and the advancement of various space-shrinking technologies, have markedly re-shaped the world over the last 75?years in an almost unchallenged manner. Amongst the most significant outcomes of these processes have been the popularisation of international travel and the accompanying global expansion of the tourism industry. As the first major force ever to effectively stop (or even reverse) globalisation and time-space compression, the COVID-19 outbreak has also put on hold the whole travel and tourism industry. In this respect, the tourism as we knew it just a few months ago has ceased to exist. Although the price the world is paying for this is enormous, the temporary processes of de-globalisation offer the tourism industry an unprecedented opportunity for a re-boot – an unrepeatable chance to re-develop in line with the tenets of sustainability and to do away with various ‘dark sides’ of tourism’s growth such as environmental degradation, economic exploitation or overcrowding. However, the path of re-development and transformation which the global tourism production system will follow once the COVID-19 crisis has been resolved is yet to be determined.     

Dysfunctional path dependence in mid‐century butterfat dairy farming on eastern Australia's subtropical coastlands: case studies at Moruya and Copmanhurst

The concept of path dependence is central to the current discourse on evolutionary approaches in regional transformations. Along the subtropical coastlands of eastern Australia, low‐input, low‐income, and labour‐intensive dairy farms were subject to prolonged dysfunction. Their creation and entrenchment serve as a potent case study of path dependence and lock‐in that were driven by mutually reinforcing attributes—behavioural, socio‐economic, cultural, political, and infrastructural. Functional rigidification and incipient dissolution were scrutinised in farm surveys undertaken from 1952 to 1954 in the Moruya and Copmanhurst districts of coastal New South Wales. At both locales, the dairy industry comprised a core of long‐term stable producers located mainly on the more accessible and productive alluvial soils, together with a fluctuating number of marginal producers motivated by a variable mix of personal, locational, and temporal influences. The demise of dairying was prolonged, in part by the industry's exceptional survival capabilities and in part by the lack of any viable alternative farming staple. The belated collapse of dairy farming in the 1960s and 1970s has facilitated the emergence and lock‐in of an alternative multifunctional pathway, driven primarily by consumption with subordinate production and protection values. The two case studies reveal synergies between the closely aligned path dependence and the multifunctional trajectory/transition concepts in yielding insights into the dynamics of rural change and in offering guidelines for further research within evolutionary economic geography.     

“We can’t return to normal”: committing to tourism equity in the post-pandemic age

Abstract

Tourism transformation must bring an actionable focus on equity. A new normal openly recognizes the crises and tensions inhabiting tourism well before the COVID-19 pandemic along with the holistic and integrated nature of a pro-equity agenda. A resilient post-pandemic tourism must be more equitable and just, in terms of how it operates, its effects on people and place, and how we as scholars teach, study and publicly engage the travel industry—particularly in preparing its current and future leaders. A commitment to equity is about making specific changes in practices and decisions at multiple levels, along with growing a wider ethical framework. This pivot of a mindset requires us, as tourists, corporations, and educators to step away from a selfish perspective and critically change our perception and understanding of tourism to a truly equitable focus. Consequently, these actions force us to question the consumerism and capitalistic lens that has contributed to mass growth across the touristic landscape and instead, choose a system that fosters sustainable and equitable growth - which in turn, ‘slows down’ our ways of consuming the world around us - transforming our values and experiences of what tourism is and should be.     

Unmasking the Essential Realities of COVID-19: The Pasifika Community in the Salt Lake Valley

Pacific Islanders in diaspora are disproportionately contracting COVID-19, experience hospitalization and develop complications. In Utah, Pacific Islanders have the highest contraction rate in the state. Pacific Islanders constitute only 2% of the state's population, but represent 4% of the those infected with COVID-19, begging the question how we might explain the high rates of contraction? As community engaged scholars and practitioners, we offer discussion, insight, and commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic affecting Pacific Islanders in Utah. Grounding this discussion is a history of the Pacific Islander community as an essential workforce that dates back to the 1850s, before statehood. We argue that historical discrimination against these early Pacific Islanders shaped the way this group is racialized as essential laborers today. The authors offer this assertion along with practices and protocols that honour cultural norms of socialization, which we see is the pathway to provide safe measures that are relevant to the Utah Pasifika community.     

Relational coupling of multiple streams: The case of COVID-19 infections in German abattoirs

After a series of COVID-19 outbreaks among employees in the German meat-processing industry, the Work Safety Control Act protecting these workers made it on the government's agenda in July 2020. From a Multiple Streams perspective, local corona hotspots may be understood as policy windows for introducing respective measures. However, this alone is not sufficient to explain agenda setting. This study investigates the coupling of streams within policy windows. Introducing the notion of relational coupling to the MSF research agenda, discourse network analysis provides a new methodology to reveal entrepreneurial activities. Studying the German mass media discourse on the issue identifies two stages: (1) An initial problem brokerage without coupling of core policies, followed by (2) a coupling across all streams based on a focusing event. We argue that relational coupling allows for an enhanced understanding of agenda setting.     

Narratives of emotion and anxiety in medical tourism: on State of the Heart and Larry's Kidney

This paper explores the emotional geographies of State of the Heart and Larry's Kidney—two nonfiction narratives about medical tourism wherein American patients and their caregiver companions travel abroad for life-saving surgeries. The paper has two main goals: first, to illustrate the importance of emotional geographies in medical tourists' lived experiences of travel and tourism, as well as the giving and receiving of transnational health care and second, to generate empirical, theoretical, and methodological discussions between geographical, travel, tourism, and health studies on the relevance of emotional geographies. Medical tourists' experiences of travel and health care have been usually examined as spatially distinct rather than as entwined phenomena. We address the above goals by discussing how the narratives of traveling thousands of miles to a radically different socio-cultural milieu in order to receive essential medical care produce two interrelated emotional geographies: first, they demonstrate the existence of ‘emotional amplification’ (increase in the intensity of emotions) and ‘emotional extensivity’ (increase in the range of emotions) and second, they show how anxiety is underpinned by proximity to Otherness, uncertain boundaries, and isolated decision making. We conclude by briefly addressing how our examination of these narratives can be usefully expanded.