Tourism and community resilience in the Anthropocene: accentuating temporal overtourism

A co-authored paper written by CTR researcher, Prof. Joseph M. Cheer was published in an academic journal, Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

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Title

Tourism and community resilience in the Anthropocene: accentuating temporal overtourism

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Authors

Joseph M. Cheer, Center for Tourism Research, Wakayama University, Wakayama, Japan; School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Victoria, Australia

Claudio Milano, Ostelea School of Hospitality & Tourism, University of Lleida, Barcelona, Spain

Marina Novelli, School of Sport and Service Management, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK

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Source

Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 2019, 27:4, pp. 554¨C572

DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2019.1578363

https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2019.1578363

*Indexed in Scopus

Journal details: https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/14811

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Abstract

Global tourism growth is unprecedented. Consequently, this has elevated the sector as a key plank for economic development, and its utility is deeply embedded in political, economic and social-ecological discourse. Where the expansion of the sector leverages natural and cultural landscapes, this applies pressure to social and ecological underpinnings that if not reconciled, can become problematic. The way this plays out in Australia¡¯s Shipwreck Coast and the wider Great Ocean Road region, especially the implications for community resilience, is the focus. Emphasis is placed on the vulnerability of peripheral coastal areas to development that withdraws from destination endowments, yet fails to provide commensurate economic yield as a suitable trade-off. This is obvious where tourism intensification has led to concerns about the breach of normative carrying capacities. Temporal overtourism driven by seasonal overcrowding is countenanced as emblematic of tourism in the Anthropocene where focus tends to be largely growth-oriented, with much less attention given to bolstering social-ecological resilience, especially community resilience. At stake is the resilience of regional areas and their communities, who in the absence of garnering commensurate economic returns from tourism expansion find themselves in social and ecological deficit.

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Keywords

Community resilience; overtourism; temporal overtourism; seasonality; social-ecological resilience