Fast and slow resilience in the New Zealand tourism industry

Abstract

In the tourism literature, there is considerable emphasis on resilience to immediate changes (e.g. natural disasters or financial shocks), yet there is merit in conceptualizing resilience as a dynamic long-term state, which exists across different levels of tourism from individual business owners, to destination and national-level activities. The concept of fast- and slow-onset disasters is relevant here (Lew, 2014), where the rate of change has significant implications for tourism destination management and resilience planning. Two New Zealand case study sites are presented below, to illustrate the interesting contrasts between the outcomes of a fast-onset disaster and an emerging slow-onset natural event from a resilience planning perspective. The first case study is from the West Coast of South Island, a peripheral region with a popular glacier and nature-based tourism industry. The second case study is the post-earthquake city of Christchurch.

The West Coast case study describes a social-ecological system almost entirely reliant on nature-based tourism to sustain itself, acknowledging the close connection between tourism activity and community resilience against a background of (typically) incremental (although occasionally rapid) environmental change. In contrast, the Canterbury earthquakes affected a largely urban area and the impact of this event on tourism operators was immediate and sustained over many years post-earthquake. We suggest this fast-onset disaster was followed by slow recovery, and a growing awareness of the importance of adaptability and resilience to future events.