Tourism and Resilience

This book discusses the concept of resilience and its application to tourism. It compares the relevance of resilience to sustainability; the former focusing on the well-being and survival of the places affected and the latter focusing on the agent of impact, tourism itself.

This is the first book to address the concept of resilience and its specific application and relevance to tourism, in particular tourism destinations. Resilience relates to the ability of organisms, communities, ecosystems and populations to withstand the impacts of external forces while retaining their integrity and ability to continue functioning. It is particularly applicable to tourism destinations and attractions which are exposed to the potentially harmful and sometimes severe effects of tourism development and visitation, but which also can experience increased resilience from the economic benefits of tourism. Phenomena such as destination communities, wildlife populations and ecosystems are discussed, as well as the ability of places and communities to use tourism and its infrastructure to recover from disasters such as tsunamis, earthquakes, unrest and disease. This book: · Compares the relevance of resilience to sustainability· Contains contributions from many of the leading international authors· Brings together varying viewpoints of both conceptual and applied issues· Includes example case studies from Whistler, western Canada; Sri Lanka; Purnululu National Park, Australia; and the remote Pitcairn Island in the Pacific Tourism and Resilience is relevant for researchers, students and practitioners in tourism and related fields such as development studies, geography, sociology, anthropology, economics and business/management.