Introduction: The Interplay Between Tourism Resilience and Sustainability in the New Normal

Abstract

While Volume I of our book dealt with the changing behavior of tourists in the new normal and its impact on industry resilience, Volume II offers readership an interesting account of its impacts on sustainability. Tourism resilience and sustainability are in fact inexorably linked. This is well documented in the work of Lew et al. (2020) who clearly demonstrate how New Zealand creatively responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and reopened its domestic tourism market earlier than most countries. The country launched a campaign to encourage locals to travel within their own country and support local businesses. This example shows how tourism resilience, that is, the ability to withstand and recover from shocks and stresses, can enhance tourism sustainability, that is the ability to balance the economic, social, and environmental impacts of tourism activities. The new normal is a business landscape that has fundamentally changed (Prayag, 2023). As a result, tourism in the post-pandemic era requires a profound adaptation and innovation of tourism products, services, and policies to meet the changing needs and demands of tourists, as well as to ensure the sustainability of tourism development in economic, social, and environmental terms (Gowreesunkar et al., 2021; Hall et al., 2020). There is indeed a major restructuring in the world economy driven by technological innovation on the supply side. From the demand side, the new normal involves a preference for flexible and small-group travel, special interest tourism, and new health and hygiene protocols among others (Prayag, 2023). This changing trend in demand and supply of tourism products has also affected the sustainability of the global tourism industry, a point echoed in the study of Buhalis and Cooper (2000): “…following the COVID-19 Pandemic, tourism suppliers at destinations need to understand that they should not compete with each other at the destination level. Instead, they should join forces and pool resources…” (Buhalis & Cooper, 1998, p. 21). This is also well-detailed in the work of Gowreesunkar et al. (2022)—Management and Restoration of the Tourism Ecosystem Services Post Pandemic (2022) and Korstanje et al. (2023)—“Tourism in Troubled Time.”