Abstract
PurposeThis article considers the possibilities of and barriers to socialising tourism after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Such an approach allows us to transform tourism and thereby evolve it to be of wider benefit and less damaging to societies and ecologies than has been the case under the corporatised model of tourism.Design/methodology/approachThis conceptual analysis draws on the theorisation of “tourism as a social force” and the new concept of “socialising tourism”. Using critical tourism approaches, it seeks to identify the dynamics that are evident in order to assess the possibilities for socialising tourism for social and ecological justice. It employs an Indigenous perspective that the past, present and future are interconnected in its consideration of tourism futures.FindingsCOVID-19 has fundamentally disrupted tourism, travel and affiliated industries. In dealing with the crisis, borders have been shut, lockdowns imposed and international tourism curtailed. The pandemic foregrounded the renewal of social bonds and social capacities as governments acted to prevent economic and social devastation. This disruption of normality has inspired some to envision radical transformations in tourism to address the injustices and unsustainability of tourism. Others remain sceptical of the likelihood of transformation. Indeed, phenomena such as vaccine privilege and vaccine tourism are indicators that transformations must be enabled. The authors look to New Zealand examples as hopeful indications of the ways in which tourism might be transformed for social and ecological justice.Practical implicationsThis conceptualisation could guide the industry to better stakeholder relations and sustainability.Social implicationsSocialising tourism offers a fruitful pathway to rethinking tourism through a reorientation of the social relations it fosters and thereby transforming its social impacts for the better.Originality/valueThis work engages with the novel concept of “socialising tourism”. In connecting this new theory to the older theory of “tourism as a social force”, this paper considers how COVID-19 has offered a possible transformative moment to enable more just and sustainable tourism futures.
Highlights
IntroductionCOVID-19 caused a global pandemic that spread around the world from 2020 and resulted in the shutting of borders, the locking down of whole communities and the halting of international tourism
As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it (Antoine de Saint Exupery)Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been recognised as a possible game changer for globalisation as well as for global tourism; but the critical questions are in what ways and to whose benefit? COVID-19 caused a global pandemic that spread around the world from 2020 and resulted in the shutting of borders, the locking down of whole communities and the halting of international tourism
It can be argued that tourism under free-market capitalism has been a significant facet of what Roy calls a “doomsday machine”
Summary
COVID-19 caused a global pandemic that spread around the world from 2020 and resulted in the shutting of borders, the locking down of whole communities and the halting of international tourism. As we write this in the first half of 2021, new terms have entered our lexicon including “vaccine privilege” and “vaccine tourism”. Freya Higgins-Desbiolles is based at the UniSA Business, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. Bobbie Chew Bigby is based at the Nulungu Research Institute, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Broome, Australia. Adam Doering is based at the Faculty of Tourism, Wakayama University, Wakayama, Japan
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