Destination resilience in times of COVID-19 - Destination resilience in times of COVID-19 - Network - Tourist

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Destination resilience in times of COVID-19

The COVID-19 outbreak is one of those shocks and has huge impacts on destination. Destination resilience is receiving increasing attention and will be(come) a key topic in debates as it deals with resistance, recovery and transformation in the context of external, autonomous shocks and stresses. Many questions arise such as:

  • Will visitors return?
  • How fast will visitors return?
  • Will tourism flows change?
  • What can be done to respond by DMOs, entrepreneurs, governments?
  • Will we return to situations of the past or evolve towards new states?
  • How can we anticipate future shocks and stresses?

How destinations cope with this shock? Let’s discuss!

Dear Lien, thank you very much for this important contribution, actually the imput for a discussion which - unfortunately didn't take place.

I am afraid that if you just open a new issue without connecting other peoples nobody will take notice about it as the others have not subscribed to this subject. I think that it could help to cope the link of the contribution and post it in all other slots which are connected to this to some extend.

About your questions:

I wonder if the desire to get back all those visitors who used to come befor CoVid19 would help to support an process of transformation into a tourism system which may be characterized by resilience. Wouldn't it be just "more of the same"?

So for the moment I would add some probably interesting and valuable questions such as:

  • What is important in life? What is quality in life?
  • Did we have quality in life in the pre-covid-times when there was the permanent growth of tourism, the explosion of chinese mass tourism, the collaps of prices for tourism services, somehow also the loss of quality, certainly the loss of quality of unique experiences...?

So, following a word of the Indian philosopher Gandhi, I wouldn't ask "Will we return to situations of the past or evolve towards new states?" but rather...

  • What is the future we evaluate as quality life?
  • What is a future tourism that we evaluate as compatible with life quality, balance and sustainable development - instead of over-tourism?
  • So, where do we want to got to?

If we have a common answer on that question, then we also will be able to decide on steps for developing the right way into a future WE want to live.

What do you think about that?

Ceterum censeo mutationem climae esse vincendem.

(Incidentally, I think that global warming must be defeated) 

 

Prof. (FH) Mag. Mag. Dr. Harald A. Friedl
Assoc. Professor for Sustainability and Ethics in Tourism
Institute for  Health and Tourism Management
FH JOANNEUM - University of Applied Sciences
Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Straße 24
8344 Bad Gleichenberg, Austria
Phone office +43-316/5453-6725
Phone mobil: +43-699/191.44.250
eMail: harald.friedl@fh-joanneum.at
Web: www.fh-joanneum.at/GMT

 

Interesting questions - I do believe that tourists will return, the question here is of course when this will happen... I notice in my environment that everyone longs for travel, for the distance and for experiences. Personally, I can also say that I can hardly wait to travel again. But what the crisis has shown us is that we humans are partly to blame for all the consequences and that we ourselves influence our quality of life. Of course, I would wish now that we have learned from it, that we are now mindful and travel sustainably - refrain from long distance travel for the sake of the environment.... but maybe the crisis was/is too "short" to bring about such brute shifts in thinking. So I already believe that tourists will come back, even pretty soon after vaccination rates increase and it's allowed again (depends on the country and prevailing restrictions, of course).
Still, my hope is that some entrepreneurs in the tourism industry have used the time of the pandemic, the lockdown worldwide, to come back to the needs of tourists in line with ecological components and market benefits.
To refer to Harald Friedl's question: where do we want to go - I believe that in the future we will have to make friends with the term sustainability, because without a balance of environment, society and economy our systems cannot exist in the long run. It has gone well for a long time that mankind has rather exploited, but especially by mass tourism, interventions in culture, changing the population for tourism purposes to be attractive, exploitation of people and animals, destruction of nature and accordingly an important tourist base, it is now time to rethink (in my eyes 😉 )

"Be yourself the change you want to see in this world"

Natascha Dockal,BA

Student at the FH JOANNEUM in Bad Gleichenberg/Austria

natascha.dockal@edu.fh-joanneum.at

Quote from Natascha Dockal on 15. March 2021, 14:00

"...I believe that in the future we will have to make friends with the term sustainability..."

I like this phrase, thanks a lot. Actually I held my presentation about this issue at the 3rt TOURIST conference about this challenge. So you might take a look on that. The paper about it in on the way to be published.
In short: the complexe challenges of change management 😉

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Ceterum censeo mutationem climae esse vincendem.

(Incidentally, I think that global warming must be defeated) 

 

Prof. (FH) Mag. Mag. Dr. Harald A. Friedl
Assoc. Professor for Sustainability and Ethics in Tourism
Institute for  Health and Tourism Management
FH JOANNEUM - University of Applied Sciences
Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Straße 24
8344 Bad Gleichenberg, Austria
Phone office +43-316/5453-6725
Phone mobil: +43-699/191.44.250
eMail: harald.friedl@fh-joanneum.at
Web: www.fh-joanneum.at/GMT