Decoding the Future of Tourism Resilience

 

Tourism is widely considered the world’s largest industry based on the fact that international tourists now account for more than 1 billion travel arrivals. Due to its symbiotic linkages with other sectors, the total economic impact of the tourism value chain also greatly outsizes its direct impact. Overall, international tourism is a key driver of investment and job creation, poverty reduction, economic diversification, cultural and heritage preservation, cross-cultural exchange, export trade, infrastructure development, and local economic development. Despite these positive attributes, tourism remains one of the most vulnerable sectors to a wide range of disruptive phenomena including natural disasters, climate change and global warming, pandemics and epidemics, cyber-security events, terrorism and political instability, recessions and other adverse economic shifts. The recent COVID-19, which led to the unprecedented collapse of international travel, served as yet a reminder of the intrinsic fragility of the tourism ecosystem. The disruptive effect of the pandemic produced dire consequences, especially for tourism-dependent economies, evidenced by massive job losses and sharp GDP decline.

Amid the challenges presented, the COVID-19 pandemic ultimately became the catalyst for a keener interest of international stakeholders in prioritizing designing a resilience-building framework for the tourism industry. Such a framework would leverage insights from past experiences, trend analysis, science, technology, innovation, collaborations, and research and development to help tourism interests to anticipate better and mitigate disruptive events rather than being taken off guard. Overall, the whole notion of tourism resilience seeks to enhance the tourism industry’s capacity to prepare for, manage, and withstand shocks and bounce back stronger, protecting livelihoods, economies, and the myriad other sectors it supports.

The Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre has become a focal point for coordinating global tourism resilience-building efforts. It is a world-leading research, advocacy, training, and policy institution mandated to assist with destination preparedness, management, and recovery from disruptions and/or crises that impact tourism and threaten economies and livelihoods globally. Through its various undertakings, the centre has been playing a pivotal role in producing critical tourism resilience toolkits, including forums to engage ideas among experts and stakeholders. To this end, the 2nd Global Tourism Resilience Day Conference will take place in Montego Bay, Jamaica, Malaga, Spain and Nairobi, Kenya and cover all territories.

This global Conference represents a global forum that will bring together key stakeholders, experts, policymakers, and industry leaders to discuss challenges and solutions and to collectively shape the future of a more resilient, adaptive, and sustainable tourism industry.

The conference topics will include:

 
• Building Tourism ‘Infrastructure’ Resilience
  • Land
  • Sea
  • Airlift
  • Hotels
  • Villas
  • Attractions
  • Airport
   
• Building Tourism ‘Digital’ Resilience
• Digital Transformation
• Digitalization
• Digitization
 
• Funding Tourism Resilience
• Private Sector
• Governments
• International Development Partners
 
• Women in Tourism Resilience
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Empowerment and Leadership
• Networking and Collaboration
 
• Building Tourism Climate Resilience
• Sustainable Tourism Practices
• Innovative Technologies for Resilience
• Adaptive Tourism Products and Service