“We can’t return to normal”: committing to tourism equity in the post-pandemic age

Abstract

Tourism transformation must bring an actionable focus on equity. A new normal openly recognizes the crises and tensions inhabiting tourism well before the COVID-19 pandemic along with the holistic and integrated nature of a pro-equity agenda. A resilient post-pandemic tourism must be more equitable and just, in terms of how it operates, its effects on people and place, and how we as scholars teach, study and publicly engage the travel industry—particularly in preparing its current and future leaders. A commitment to equity is about making specific changes in practices and decisions at multiple levels, along with growing a wider ethical framework. This pivot of a mindset requires us, as tourists, corporations, and educators to step away from a selfish perspective and critically change our perception and understanding of tourism to a truly equitable focus. Consequently, these actions force us to question the consumerism and capitalistic lens that has contributed to mass growth across the touristic landscape and instead, choose a system that fosters sustainable and equitable growth - which in turn, ‘slows down’ our ways of consuming the world around us - transforming our values and experiences of what tourism is and should be.

摘要

旅游业转变必须切实地注重公平。作为一种新的公开的常态, 人们已经意识到在新冠状病毒来临之前, 提倡公平旅游的迫切性就和危机、紧张一起共存于旅游业中。就后疫情时期旅游业怎样运作, 及其对人们和地方的影响, 还有我们学界的教学研究, 公众参与旅游的方式, 尤其是为当前和未来的主流准备而言, 后疫情时期旅游业的韧性发展, 必须更公平公正。对旅游公平的承诺与在不同层面上的旅游实践和决策中做出具体的改变相关, 同时还要培育更广层面上的道德构架以实现旅游公平。这种思路构建的关键要求我们作为旅游者、企业和教育工作者们, 要摒弃自私的视角, 批判性地改变我们对旅游的看法和理解, 使之成为真正公平的焦点。因而促使我们去质疑促进了整个旅游业的大规模增长的消费主义和资本视角, 反过来选择一种促进可持续和公平增长的体系。这会”减慢”我们消费周围世界的方式, 改变我们与旅游本质有关的价值观和体验。

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• post-pandemic tourism
• social equity
• RESET

关键词:

• 新冠状病毒
• 后疫情时期旅游
• 社会公平
• 重置

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stefanie Benjamin

Stefanie Benjamin is an Assistant Professor in the Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management Department at the University of Tennessee. Her research interests include social equity in tourism around the intersectionality of race, gender, sexual orientation, and people with disabilities and is the Co-Director and Research Fellow for Tourism RESET. She also researches film-induced tourism, implements improvisational theater games as innovative pedagogy, and is a certified qualitative researcher exploring ethnography, visual methodology, and social media analysis.

Alana Dillette

Alana Dillette is an Assistant Professor in the Payne School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at San Diego State University. Originally from the islands of The Bahamas, she is always trying to maintain her connection to home through research on sustainable tourism initiatives for small island states. Her other research interests include issues around diversity and inclusion, more specifically looking at the intersection between tourism, race, gender & ethnicity. Currently, she is working on research to gain a better understanding of the African-American travel experience.

Derek H. Alderman

Derek H. Alderman is a Professor of Geography and Betty Lynn Hendrickson Professor of Social Science at the University of Tennessee. He is the co-founder and one of the co-directors of Tourism RESET, a multidisciplinary research and public outreach initiative devoted to analyzing the social and spatial injustices in tourism. Alderman’s work addresses travel, mobility, and heritage tourism in the context of racial inequality, anti-racist resistance, and reparative memory-work. His research examines, in particular, civil rights memorials and antebellum plantation museums as highly charged arenas in the struggle for African-American belonging.