Human flourishing, tourism transformation and COVID-19: a conceptual touchstone

Abstract

As the planet remains in the grips of COVID-19 and amidst enforced lockdowns and restrictions, and possibly the most profound economic downturn since the Great Depression, the resounding enquiry asks—what will the new normal look like? And, in much the same way, tourism aficionados, policy makers and communities are asking a similar question—what will the tourism landscape, and indeed the world, look like after the pandemic? As casualties from the crisis continue to fall by the wayside, the rethinking about what an emergent tourism industry might resemble is on in earnest. Many are hopeful that this wake-up call event is an opportunity to reshape tourism into a model that is more sustainable, inclusive and caring of the many stakeholders that rely on it. And some indicators, though not all, point in that direction. In line with this, the concept of ‘human flourishing’ offers merits as an alternative touchstone for evaluating the impacts of tourism on host communities. Human flourishing has a long genesis and its contemporary manifestation, pushed by COVID-19 and applied to travel and tourism, further expands the bounds of its application. Human flourishing has the potential to offer more nuanced sets of approaches by which the impact of tourism on host communities might be measured. The challenge remaining is how to develop robust indices to calibrate human flourishing policy successes.

摘要

当我们的星球仍然被新型冠状病毒掌控着、被强制封锁和限制着, 可能还要面对大萧条以来最严重的经济衰退时, 我们不禁要问——新常态会是什么样子？同样地, 旅游爱好者、政策制定者和社区也在问类似问题——在这次流感大流行之后, 旅游景观乃至整个世界会变成什么样子。随着危机造成的损失不断减少, 人们开始认真反思紧急救助旅游产业的模式。许多人希望这次唤醒事件是一个重塑旅游业使之成为更可持续、更包容、更能照顾众多旅游业利益相关者的机会。有些指标, 尽管不是全部, 指向了那个方向。与此相一致, ”人类繁荣”这个概念为评价接待地社区的旅游影响时提供了另一种衡量标准。人类繁荣有着悠久的起源和当代表现形式, 因新冠病毒疫情的推动而应用于旅行和旅游业, 进一步拓展了它的应用范围。人类繁荣有可能提供更细致的成套方法, 从而可以测量当地社区的旅游影响。持续的挑战是如何开发稳健的指数来校准人类繁荣政策的成功。

Keywords:

• Human flourishing
• tourism impacts
• host community
• COVID-19
• sustainable tourism indicators

关键词:

• 人类繁荣
• 旅游影响
• 接待地社区
• 新型冠状病毒
• 可持续旅游指数

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph M. Cheer

Joseph M. Cheer is a Professor in Sustainable Tourism at the Center for Tourism Research, Wakayama University, Japan and Adjunct Research Fellow at Monash University, Australia. He is co-editor of Overtourism: Excesses, Discontents and Measures in Travel and Tourism (2019, CABI), Modern Day Slavery & Orphanage Tourism (2019, CABI), Tourism Resilience & Sustainability: Adapting to social, political and economic change (2017, Routledge) and Tourism Resilience and Environmental Change: Definitions and Frameworks (2017, Routledge) and board member International Geographical Union (IGU), Commission on Tourism and Leisure and Global Change and committee member Critical Tourism Studies Asia-Pacific.