Adoption policies of island supply-side from the perspective of tourism resilience

Abstract

This paper examines the employment policies on the supply-side of islands where tourism is being promoted from the regional resilience perspective in relation to temporal fluctuations in tourism demand. The tourism sector in Japan has experienced significant changes in employment statuses due to COVID-19 during the tourism promotion phase since the 2010s. The case of Japanese seaside resorts was examined in the promotion phase and the pandemic has led to differences in business type and employment policies. 38 businesses in the sector (out of 53 qualitative data) experienced employment changes since the 2010s. Individual businesses that have just opened or have expanded in scale were able to survive the short-term crisis by adjusting their existing employees and temporary labor imports in terms of economy (salary, bonuses), time (workdays and hours), and skills (permanent appointments). In contrast, not only small-scale local businesses and but also larger businesses that need to hire many people were unable to recover the employment from the post-pandemic in local labor markets with tight labor supply and demand. These businesses are indicated to be vulnerable to both future pandemics and overtourism due to lack of professional and semi-skilled positions.