Tourism and degrowth: an emerging agenda for research and praxis

Abstract

This article outlines a conceptual framework and research agenda for exploring the relationship between tourism and degrowth. Rapid and uneven expansion of tourism as a response to the 2008 economic crisis has proceeded in parallel with the rise of social discontent concerning so-called "overtourism." Despite decades of concerted global effort to achieve sustainable development, meanwhile, socioecological conflicts and inequality have rarely reversed, but in fact increased in many places. Degrowth, understood as both social theory and social movement, has emerged within the context of this global crisis. Yet thus far the vibrant degrowth discussion has yet to engage systematically with the tourism industry in particular, while by the same token tourism research has largely neglected explicit discussion of degrowth. We bring the two discussions together here to interrogate their complementarity. Identifying a growth imperative in the basic structure of the capitalist economy, we contend that mounting critique of overtourism can be understood as a structural response to the ravages of capitalist development more broadly. Debate concerning overtourism thus offers a valuable opportunity to re-politicize discussion of tourism development generally. We contribute to this discussion by exploring of the potential for degrowth to facilitate a truly sustainable tourism.

Sustainable Tourism and the Grand Challenge of Climate Change

“…Considering how these climate change impacts will then interact with other technological, demographic, social, economic, and political megatrends that will influence tourism demand and development remains an additional area for future research [45,46]. Similarly, how post-carbon and climate-resilient tourism converges with other dimensions of the broader sustainable tourism agenda, including "degrowth", "slow", "responsible", "pro-poor", and "regenerative" tourism [85], require important theoretical and pragmatic dialogues. Our inability to more fully capture the complexity of the climate change and tourism nexus demands new approaches that allow for multi-dimensional problems and non-linear system responses.…”

Overtourism and the Local Community Well-Being

“…Many aspects of the relationship between tourists and local communities on destinations overburdened by tourism have been covered by numerous research studies ranging from residents' inclination towards tourism degrowth (Milano et al 2019a), bolstering social-ecological and community resilience (Cheer et al 2020) through exploring sustainable degrowth (Claudet et al 2020;Fletcher et al 2020).…”

Increasing tourism through social entrepreneurship – the case of Croatia

“…Tourism, as one of the most significant phenomena of modern society, is at the same time one of the world's largest industries and hence the main form of global economic expansion (Fletcher et al, 2019). According to UNWTO (2019), the tourism industry is forecasted to continue to grow dramatically in the future based on the development aspirations of many low-and high-income countries alike.…”