Time for Reset? Covid-19 and Tourism Resilience

Abstract

As a rapidly evolving global pandemic, COVID-19 provides several opportunities for tourism researchers to study the resilience of the tourism industry from a socioecological system perspective. Pandemics are not new and, similar to other crises and disasters, can have lasting impacts on individuals, businesses, communities, and nations. This article offers ways to explore how COVID-19 could affect different aspects of tourism resilience, adopting a three-level approach (macro, meso, and micro). While recognizing that these three levels are not necessarily mutually exclusive, interactions between them can be a worthy area of research in itself. This article proposes a research agenda on COVID-19 and tourism system resilience and contributes to further understanding of scale of change (temporal and spatial), impacts, and resilience. The article identifies, for example, resilience of destinations, organizations, and tourists as important areas of future research in relation to the pandemic. However, theoretical advancements and managerial implications of such research should not be sacrificed at the expense of the opportunities that the context of COVID-19 presents. It is time for reset not only for the tourism industry but also for tourism researchers.