Introduction to special issue on island tourism resilience

Abstract

The purpose of this Special Issue is to frame island tourism research while bringing to the forefront the myriad of challenges facing islands to develop successful tourism destinations. Islands are special geographic features spread all across the globe, and tourism has been an important economic activity for many of these often resource constrained territories. If tourism is a means to economic prosperity, then island destinations need to explore several considerations and build resilient tourism economies that can overcome external shocks. While tourism researchers have noted island tourism research in book and article titles, when addressing the occurrence of tourism in islands, the body of work surrounding tourism in islands requires framing, as a wide array of concepts has been explored including sustainability, resilience, development, economies, impact, destinations, trends, planning and prospects. With such variety, island tourism research has seemed to lack direction or form. Herein, this Special Issue seeks to address this by framing island tourism research around the themes of Lifecycles, System Decline and Resilience. Tourism growth and development occur as a process over a period of time and this flow can be illustrated using tourism arrivals. Ongoing flows of visitors are expected to take a particular course and understanding changes in that course relates to identification of system decline. Finally, building resilience means gaining the capacity to adapt to and successfully manage changes in the dimensions and nature of tourism.

Keywords:

• Island tourism
• resilience
• system decline
• tourism lifecycle
• sustainability
• culture
• ecological
• small islands

Island tourism destinations: lifecycles, system decline and resilience

Research studies about island tourism destinations have grown over the years from the early discussions of island tourism issues in the 1990s (Briguglio, Archer, et al., 1996; Briguglio, Butler, et al., 1996; Conlin & Baum, 1995; Drakakis-Smith et al., 1993) to the more recent works (Baldacchino, 2013; Croes, 2006; Dodds & Graci, 2012; Hamzah & Hampton, 2013; Harrison, 2001; Lim & Cooper, 2009; McLeod & Croes, 2018; Weaver, 2017). Framing island tourism as a field in its own right is an important step towards building island tourism research studies. The distinction of being an island has been an attractive context for tourism researchers, with the context being viewed as a laboratory. Hall (2010) argues that islands are a ‘natural laboratory’ for the observation and study of tourism because of its bounded nature. With the possibility of a bounded island research area under study, the advent of tourism on an island takes a particular path that may be delineated as a ‘Tourist Area Life Cycle’ (TALC) (Butler, 1980). The TALC within island destinations provides a framework to monitor the path of tourism growth and development an island takes. This ‘life cycle’ concept within a tourism area has been clarified by Singh (2011). Research directed to understand the growth and development of tourism in islands has the benefit of guiding policy guidelines and management practices to sustain such growth and at the same time averting any prolonged period of consistent decline.

Resilience of island destinations has drawn attention (Alberts & Baldacchino, 2017; Hall, 2012; Hayle, Singh & Wright, 2010; McLeod, 2020) to understand the theoretical, facilitating factors and changing circumstances that affect island tourism resilience. In itself, embarking on tourism activities may be viewed as a means by which an island economy can be diversified and become resilient (Alberts & Baldacchino, 2017) and resiliency in tourism destinations builds resistance to the effects of global changes (Cheer & Lew, 2017). The capacity of an island destination to adapt to changes in the global environment is constrained by the creation of knowledge, development of resources and the governance systems to implement and monitor. Island tourism destinations evolve and a field of study that will capture the changing dynamics and contribute to an overall sustainable development agenda is a worthwhile research focus. Island destinations have to become agile in capturing and mitigating any possibility of a tourism system decline. Several authors explored the characteristics of island tourism systems in decline (Carlsen & Butler, 2011; Dodds, 2012; McLeod & Scott, 2018), and converting decline to rejuvenation has to be supported by the building of resiliency in island tourism destinations.

Importance of focusing on island tourism as a special form of tourism

Tourism development, particularly in small islands and archipelagos, has unique socio-cultural, historical and political contexts that require some attention. These contexts are built on an existing fragile eco-system that in the case of smaller islands are vulnerable to heavy traffic by tourist visitation. Transformation of an island into one that is dependent on tourism may in itself create a vulnerability that cannot withstand isolation brought on by being cut-off from the global travel and tourism system. The development and management of tourism systems in island environments are particularly challenged by leakages (C. D. Russell, 2020) and governance matters (Rolle et al., 2020) that are directly and indirectly related to the nature of an island, that is, being cut-off from a main land mass. Environmental issues are particularly evident in island tourism (Kuo & Chen, 2009). Human resource development issues in islands are a prime concern as this capacity has to be built for the successful operation of a tourism destination. The non-availability of local labour and the socio-cultural matters relating to the movement of labour and migration to island tourism destinations have to be addressed. Given the subjects to be addressed a layering approach was outlined for the Special Issue topics to allow a wide scope of subject matter, to address the stated context of island tourism as follows:

Island colonization, geographies and tourism;

Island tourism development stages, lifecycles and decline;

Island travel and transportation, inter-island transportation, and cruise shipping within island environments;

Tourist motivation and demand for islands;

Tourism marketing of islands, including new competition and changing feeder markets;

Island hospitality, services and businesses, micro and small businesses, craft markets;

Island tourism economics, financial leakages, inclusive growth and backward linkages;

Island culture and heritage, festivals and event management, cuisine and gastronomy;

Island tourism migration/diaspora issues;

Island tourism environments and environmental quality, including climate change issues;

Island tourism infrastructure development, sustainability and resilience;

Island tourism networks, suppliers, enterprises, inter-mediaries and organisations;

Policy-making for tourism development in islands and island tourism governance;

Tourism management issues including human resources and operation management;

Tourism education and training in islands, vocational training and curriculum development.

Tourism on islands: towards island resilience

Island tourism researchers utilise a geographic feature of being an island, a piece of land surrounded by water, as the basis for study. With several islands being categorised as Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and facing ongoing challenges relating to global financial, natural disasters and recently a pandemic crisis, some attention has been paid to understanding responses of island economies (e.g. Buultjens et al., 2017). By the very nature of being islands, several unique characteristics result in degrees of fragmentation and disintegration, which place those economies at a disadvantage. Some islands are very remote with limited connectivity to benefit from growing economic activity in travel and tourism. Nonetheless, it is this very economic activity that islands are often left to turn to, because of lack of resources to support other economic activities. Island geographies are integrally connected to the economic activity that is tourism, and yet focused attention, on a perspective of resilience and recovery in island tourism destinations, needs to be made in the tourism literature. The vulnerability of islands has been well documented in journals such as Island Studies Journal (Baldacchino, 2006) and other publications (Calgaro & Lloyd, 2008; Hall, 2012; Klint, 2013), however, understandings about island destinations, lifecycles, system decline and resilience require further elaboration. Several authors have considered various aspects such as the social and ecological perspectives of island resilience (Adger et al., 2005; Cheer et al., 2017), governance and resilience (Lebel et al., 2006; Luthe & Wyss, 2016) and limiting vulnerability (Alberts & Baldacchino, 2017). A burgeoning tourism literature about tourism resilience has contributed to the study, however, for island destinations that are increasingly constrained by limited resources, a path to greater island tourism resilience has to be clarified.

This Special Issue started with a call for papers in 2017 and 53 abstracts were received. A summary of information about the topics of abstracts includes some very important topics about island tourism, although many of these did not evolve into full papers. These included various forms of island tourism such as a nautical destination, cruise, slow transport and mobilities. Marketing related topics were also submitted including branding, destination loyalty, vacation satisfaction, advertising and social media content analysis. Abstracts around concepts relating to island tourism submitted included concept of islandness (Butler, 2012), resilience, recreating vulnerability, innovation, over-tourism, modelling, planning, and life cycle. Natural environmental impacts included cyclones and climate change, while the human and social geographical perspectives were an important group of content for the abstracts and included topics such as indigenous communities, immigrants, culture, gastronomy, disease, the sharing economy, resident stress and housing. Unfortunately, no abstracts related to cold-water islands, a sub-set of islands which include a number of significant tourism destinations and which, while not facing the hazards of hurricanes or typhoons, are perhaps more vulnerable to regular unattractive weather (in a tourism context) and share many of the same problems of small scale, resource scarcity, and difficult access that their warm-water counterparts suffer from.

A body of work containing 12 papers emerged with research insights about island tourism destinations across the globe. A summary of the articles follows. Island tourism authenticity is challenged by globalisation on culture. Several Caribbean tourism destinations and the challenges of resilience have been included in this Special Issue. Tolkach and Pratt’s article about ‘Globalisation and cultural change in Pacific Island countries: the role of tourism’, explores resiliency to cultural change within the context of Fiji, Tonga and Cook Islands. Kelman’s article about ‘Critiques of island sustainability in tourism’ is thought provoking with the balance between tourism and sustainability being challenged. The SIDS context is explored by Walker and Lee in the ‘Contributions to sustainable tourism in small islands: and analysis of the Cittáslow movement’ and the benefits derived from Slow Food and Slow Tourism’. Bangwayo-Skeete and Skeete’s modelling of tourism resilience in two small island states, Grenada and Barbados, using the Adaptive Cycle Model pushes the boundary of understanding island resilience in tourism dependent islands. Weis, Chambers and Holladay presents the social-ecological aspects of resilience and explores community-based tourism in six coastal communities in Dominica.

European islands as tourism destinations have a particular historical context and Cirer-Costa presents the ‘Economic and social resilience accounts for the recovery of Ibiza’s tourism sector’, showing the historical development of the destination and the contribution of tourism. Amoamo’s paper utilises the geopolitical context of Brexit to understand island resilience in Britain’s Overseas Island Territories, which is exemplified in the case of Pitcairn Island. An understanding of the role of immigrant island communities and the contribution to island resilience has been presented by Calero-Lemes and Garcia-Almeida in relation to immigrant entrepreneur knowledge in the tourism industry utilising a case example of the Eastern Canary Islands’.

This Special Issue includes developing resilient Asian island tourism destinations. Weaver, Tang, Lawton and Liu consider the resilience of the Maldives in relation to cultivating the Chinese market through destination loyalty. King-Chan, Capistrano and Lopez focus of the environment in Camiguin Province, Philippines and draw attention to the increasing need for environmentally responsible behaviour (ERB) to avert potential environmental impact as tourist numbers increase. Young, Reindrawati, Lyons and Johnson’s article particularly focuses on the resident perceptions of tourism from an Islamic Indonesian island and associations of host meaning of tourism that may influence tourism outcomes. Pickel-Chevalier, Bendesa and Putra explore a policy of integrated touristic villages as an archetype of sustainable development in Indonesia.

Tourism life cycles

Islands are socio-ecological systems with physical and human activity life cycles. A life cycle perspective is an approach that can be applied to understand the evolution of a tourism system (Castellani & Sala, 2012; Chapman & Light, 2016), to re-invent a tourism destination (Corak, 2006), for planning (Getz, 1992), for tourism development (Zhong et al., 2008), for carrying capacity (Martin & Uysal, 1990) and carbon emissions (Tang et al., 2017). In terms of human aspects of tourism, the tourism life cycle has been utilised to understand resident attitudes towards tourism at the stagnation stage of a destination (Pennington-Gray, 2005), entrepreneurship (Russell & Faulkner, 2004) and a travel life cycle (Oppermann, 1995). A gap can be identified on the human activity aspect of life cycle assessment. Haywood (1986) supports the operationalisation of the life cycle concept with a review of six major measurement decisions and applies it to tourism forecasting and marketing strategy. In relation to an island tourism destination, the gamut of application of a life cycle in tourism has had limited application and only one work was noted (Oreja Rodríguez et al., 2008). Island tourism life cycles occur as tourism development evolves. A bridge is needed to bring about the methodological approaches that can study a bounded system of an island using the life cycle concept. Papers in this Special Issue illustrate in particular the evolution of activities to build resilient tourism destinations (Bangwayo-Skeete & Skeete, 2020; Cirer-Costa, 2020).

Tourism system decline

A tourism system is one in which tourists move temporarily between origins and destinations using a form of transport and this movement may be categorised as an overnight stay or day visit. It is expected that this flow of visitors will grow over time as the destination is popularised and the policy, planning, development and management frameworks are put in place to increase tourism activities. Tourism decline has been studied on a tangent and not in the context of a system. Baum and O'Gorman (2010) looked at a destination name and its influence on the decline of tourism. Manente and Pechlaner (2006) conducted some promising work about identification and monitoring decline of tourism destinations within the concept of a tourism area life cycle. Müller and Brouder (2014) considered tourism businesses and the local labour markets to determine decline. Scott and Laws’ (2006) article about systemic effects of tourism crises and disasters contributes to understanding tourism system decline. While evidence exists that tourism flows change over time and decline is one outcome, the body of work surrounding this very important issue has been sparse and lacks application to island tourism.

Tourism resilience

Resilience involves a systemic approach that breaks down a socio-ecological system into components to understand the interactions of those components (McLeod, 2020). Hall (2017) suggests that there has been limited understanding and application of a resilience concept to tourism and it has been applied much later than in other fields. Resilience has received increasing prominence in tourism research and can provide benefits for the policy and planning of tourism destinations (Lew, 2014; Lew et al., 2017). Tourism in the Caribbean has been devastated by a series of catastrophic hurricanes, Irma and Maria in 2017, and Hurricane Dorian that made landfall on two islands of The Bahamas in 2019. Some work about resilience in natural events has also been conducted. Adger et al. (2005) studied resilience in the context of coastal disasters and Calgaro and Lloyd (2008) explored the impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on coastal tourism to understand destination vulnerability. Becken and Khazai (2017) discussed the role of tourism in assisting recovery after disasters, and several authors have addressed the resilience of coral reefs (Coghlan & Prideaux, 2009; Grimsditch & Salm, 2006; Phillips, 2015). A growing application of resilience and its associated concept vulnerability has been evident in the island tourism literature (Klint, 2013; Mahon et al., 2013). Broader application of resilience to tourism destinations can bring value to move beyond the sustainability concept as destinations build in mechanisms that are able to respond quickly to changes in the tourism system.

A case for further island tourism studies

Global impacts on island destinations, which are often dependent on tourism as a means of income and viability, require new approaches to understanding island tourism resilience. Although a small geographic context, island communities are exposed to the dislocation, disruption and disposition of their lives, and such circumstances do not allow islanders to benefit fully from the development of successful tourism destinations. The treatment of island tourism discourses in the tourism literature is a critical and essential component to advancing understandings of tourism as a discipline, and understandings of the island context in particular. Sharpley (2012) and others (Baldacchino, 2013; Butler, 2012) point attention to the long standing fascination of tourists with islands. Island tourism has a distinctive form (Sharpley, 2012). Tourist generating markets visit islands, and the unique characteristics of these small island gems provide rest and relaxation to the mundane issues of life. Major tourist markets will benefit by the development of island tourism communities that seek to build resilient tourist destinations that are better managed and developed in a manner that sustains the flows of tourists to these islands. Moreover, islanders stand to gain from the benefits of tourism by understanding the nature of island tourism and potential evolutionary changes that result in setting a path towards island resilience. If an island is treated as an ideal laboratory on a small scale, then the examination and exploration of tourism principles and practices are endless, with the potential of providing better understandings about issues relating to climate change, economic vulnerability and sustainable development. While new methodologies develop around island research (McLeod, 2018), new theoretical constructs that guide the development of these land masses are to be examined, and thereby new knowledge emerges about tourism theory, management and development impacts. The burgeoning of papers that this call generated is evidence of the need and interest for island tourism research and justifies its own niche in the tourism literature.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michelle McLeod

Dr. Michelle McLeod is at The University of the West Indies Mona Campus. Now a tourism academic, Dr. McLeod has been involved with the tourism industry for over 30 years. Her research interests include knowledge networks, destination and policy networks, and service productivity. Her two co-edited books are ‘Knowledge Networks and Tourism' and 'Tourism Management in Warm-water Island Destinations’.

Rachel Dodds

Dr. Rachel Dodds is a Professor at Ryerson’s Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. Her research interests include sustainable tourism, islands, tourism motivations and tourism planning and development. She has authored numerous articles and two books: Sustainable Tourism in Island Destinations and Overtourism: Issues, Realities and Solutions. Rachel also contiues to work in the tourism industry helping business and destinations become more sustainable.

Richard Butler

Richard Butler, Emeritus Professor at Strathclyde University, is a geographer whose research has focused on destination development and associated impacts, particularly in insular and remote regions. A past president of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies, he has published over twenty books and many articles on tourism and acted as advisor to UNWTO and Canadian, Australian and UK governments. In 2016 he was awarded the UNWTO Ulysses medal for ‘excellence in the creation and dissemination of knowledge’.