Resilience in tourism by default? Notes from the Stellenbosch Winelands

Dr Gustav Visser gives a lecture titled "Resilience in tourism by default? Notes from the Stellenbosch Winelands".

Abstract:
An extensive literature on resilience in hospitality and tourism has developed over the past two decades. Conceptual and practical interpretations have been presented in various contexts, addressing many aspects of resilience and their possible links to sustainable tourism. Much of the literature has come from engineering and socio-ecological perspectives. Amid broader environmental and sustainability debates, COVID-19 momentarily overshadowed discussions in resilience planning. A whole new literature developed at supersonic speeds and various categories of analysis have become conflated. I argue that resilience seems to be located in “spontaneous responses and not really in top-down narratives” and holds a very interesting theoretical turn that many tourism scholars are likely to resist. The presentation is not directly concerned with addressing theoretical issues and debates on resilient or sustainable tourism, but rather considers a range of crises as generative of local responses to various externalities, including ideas surrounding sustainable tourism and resilience. I argue that COVID-19 did not substantively change tourist behaviour in the post-COVID world. In terms of tourist behaviour and industry ambitions, pre-pandemic debates remain relevant post-pandemic. Yet, innovation has been the main result of a number of crises, including COVID, but these outcomes might not be those hoped for in sustainability and resilience debates.

About professor Visser:
Dr. Gustav Visser studied at Stellenbosch University (BA, MA) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (PhD). He completed his postdoctoral studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. Gustav was appointed Professor of Geography at the University of the Free State in 2009 and then at Stellenbosch University in 2015. He was the President of the Society of South African Geographers and is now a Fellow. In addition, he was the past editor of Urban Forum (published by Springer) and serves on various editorial boards. His primary research interests focus on identity-based consumption and urban morphological change, particularly in the relationship between tourism and spatial development in urban areas. This work has been published in over 160 scholarly journal articles, book chapters, and ten books.