Perspective Chapter: Rethinking Tourism for the Benefit of All in a Postnormal between Space

Abstract

There is considerable evidence that many of the systemic features and issues of the present global condition—including how we consider both globalization and sustainability—are problematic in a postnormal world that is complex, chaotic and contradictory. The numerous uncertainties generated by the postnormal suggests that humanity and our social institutions are now decoupled from a dominant, Westernized narrative that finds it difficult to navigate an indeterminate between space. Nowhere is this failure of shared narrative and institutional disfunction more evident than in the global tourism complex. It seduces us into accepting the unsustainable premises of low cost and high volume that underpin its offerings, whilst ensuring that the vast majority of benefit for the same goes to technological platforms and those that package and transport. The consequence is a world of ‘overtourism’, which continues to destroy habitats, marginalize communities and minimize benefit to local workforces, all the while shifting infrastructure costs to local governments. This chapter will explore how tourism-dependent societies can create sustainable benefit for both habitat and the environment, whilst at the same time deliver better visitor experiences. It will assert the case for both systemic enquiry and navigation-centric practice in a future of pluriversal world making.