Tourist towns on the edge: conceptualising vulnerability and resilience in a protected area tourism system

Abstract

The Franz Josef and Fox Glacier townships in New Zealand's “Glacier Country”, neighbouring Westland National Park, are remote tourist attractions facing multiple future sustainability challenges. Despite their distance from their markets, they attract 600,000 visitors annually and are fundamental to the district's economy. However, issues of geographic isolation are compounded by major threats of flooding and earthquake, rising fuel prices and climate change scenarios which imply serious glacier melting. Using 24 stakeholder interviews, this study evaluates susceptibility to change at multiple scales which could undermine the economic and social longevity of this iconic destination. Adopting a human–environment systems perspective, it utilises the concepts of vulnerability and resilience to examine dimensions of change and response that have shaped the community, conservation and tourism in this peripheral region. It finds high levels of vulnerability do not necessarily determine low levels of resilience, nor vice versa. Rather than mutually exclusive, vulnerability and resilience are discrete, but highly compatible concepts, offering much to the analysis of protected area tourism facing global change. The paper notes the potential guidance and governance role of the protected area in building resilience, and equally the threat to the protected area's integrity if tourism is compromised by its vulnerabilities.

边缘的旅游城镇：在一个保护区旅游系统里概念化脆弱性和弹性

弗朗兹约瑟夫冰川及福克斯冰川位于新西兰的冰川乡附近，临近西部国家公园，现在这里正面临着一系列问题。尽管这里离他们的客源地很远，每年依旧有六十万游客到访此地，旅游业是这里的基础支柱产业。但是，洪水、地震、上升的油价、气候变暖（气候变暖意味着冰川将融化）使这里的问题变得更加严重。本文通过对个相关人员的访问调查，从多个尺度评估了目的地的经济和社会寿命对于这些改变的脆弱性。这篇文章从人和环境系统角度出发，使用了脆弱性和恢复力概念来检测目的地对于这些改变的应对和反应。这些措施被用于调整社区形态，保护周边旅游业。这篇文章发现高度的脆弱性并不代表困难的修复性，反之亦然。脆弱性和恢复力是独立的而不是相互排斥的。

两者高度的兼容性，提供了旅游地对于全球性变化的保护分析。这篇文章还注意到指导和控制在保护地建筑恢复当中的重要性，同样也提出了对受到其脆弱性影响的保护地恢复完整性的担忧。

Keywords:

• protected area tourism system
• Fox Glacier
• Franz Josef Glacier
• New Zealand
• vulnerability
• resilience

关键词:

• 旅游
• 保护区
• 福克斯冰川
• 弗朗兹
• 约瑟夫冰川
• 新西兰
• 脆弱性
• 弹性

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for their constructive feedback on the manuscript, and the journal's co-editor, Bernard Lane, for his guidance in the preparation of the final paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen Espiner

Dr Stephen Espiner is a senior lecturer in parks, recreation and tourism at Lincoln University, New Zealand. His research interests focus on the human dimensions of protected natural area management, with particular emphasis on nature-based recreation and tourism and associated visitor management issues.

Susanne Becken

Dr Susanne Becken is a professor of sustainable tourism at Griffith University, Australia, and an adjunct professor at Lincoln University, New Zealand. Susanne has led several government-funded research programmes in New Zealand and has also undertaken consultancy work for organisations within New Zealand and internationally. Susanne is on the editorial boards of Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Travel Research, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, and The Tourism Review. She is a contributing author to the Fourth and the Fifth IPCC Assessment Reports, and is actively involved in debates on climate change, resilience, risk management and tourism.