Towards a future conceptualization of destination resilience: exploring the role of actors, agency and resilience narratives

With the increasing complexity and uncertainty of global events, the interest in resilience is steadily growing. From a global to a local level, resilience has been highlighted as a valuable bridging concept to deal with risks, uncertainty and change and has become an integral element in policies and frameworks (e.g. Paris Climate Accord, Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction (SFDRR), Urban Agenda, sustainable development goals (SDGs)). Similar to the developments in other research disciplines, resilience has quickly emerged as a fashionable and widely adopted concept in tourism studies (Butler, 2017; Lew and Cheer, 2017; Saarinen and Gill, 2019). However, the issue of conceptualizing let alone measuring resilience has been a controversial and much disputed subject among tourism scholars (Prayag, 2018). Despite significant progress on the harmonization of the resilience concept in multiple disciplines, tourism-related studies are criticized for not having reached a coherent usage of key terms and related concepts when addressing resilience (Aliperti et al., 2019). This suggests that different epistemologies, origins and applications of resilience are often neglected in tourism research where resilience seems to be used rather as a buzzword. Thus, not surprisingly, research on resilience has been deemed fuzzy and its conceptual and practical relevance has been questioned (Brand and Jax, 2007; Cote and Nightingale, 2012). These inadequacies can also be transferred to the realm of tourism destinations which have become a popular frame for analyzing resilience in recent years (e.g. Amore et al., 2018; Basurto-Cedeño and Pennington-Gray, 2016; Hartman, 2018). Lately, destinations and their resilience have particularly moved into focus with the near-ubiquitous presence of crises such as the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, floods, bush fires, economic crises and political unrest in many prime tourism destinations. However, the destination as unit of analysis raises further conceptual difficulties regarding resilience with much debate surrounding the questions: What is a destination? Who or what in a destination should be resilient against what? And, what does “being resilient” exactly imply? Finding adequate answers to these questions by conceptualizing and subsequently operationalizing destination resilience is impeded by the fact that the conceptual background of resilience is so imprecise in language and theory (Agrawal et al., 2012).

In this contribution, we take up the call for “greater academic attention” to destination resilience and its foundations as expressed by Gössling and Higham (2021, p. 1176). The aim of this conceptual paper is to unravel the fuzziness surrounding the resilience concepts by tracing narratives for the conceptualization and operationalization of destination resilience in different scholarly disciplines. Building on that, we identify theoretical baselines and conceptual elements associated with epistemologies and resilience application from different research traditions. We conceptually advance the resilience debate in tourism studies by presenting an advanced “Destination Resilience Model” that integrates these elements to offer leverage for better understanding destination resilience. We intend to challenge the understanding of resilience as a static or measurable trait and introduce the ideas of actor-centrism and human agency to inform future research on destination resilience. Employing a conceptual research design, we seek to generate a new interpretation of destination resilience by synthesizing theories and concepts from multidisciplinary bodies of knowledge. In the following section 2, we introduce our methodological approach, before we provide a comprehensive overview of the origin of destination resilience as well as previous difficulties of conceptualizing and operationalizing resilience in a destination context. Section 4 then presents the model and its elements before concluding with an outlook of potential applications in tourism destinations.

We consider our research conceptual and position it in the subjectivist/interpretivist research paradigm. We analyze existing literature to map out the key conceptual elements that are associated with (destination) resilience and employed within different disciplinary research traditions. Unlike a systematic review that entails an exhaustive literature search with predefined inclusion criteria to compile a dataset for analysis, a conceptual paper selects background literature based on its relevance to the argument, aiming to enhance the understanding of the concepts being explored (Kirillova and Yang, 2022). Taking a conceptual research approach, the concept of resilience itself is the object of our research (Xin et al., 2013). Having clearly articulated destination resilience as our focal point of research, we focus on literature about resilience and associated concepts such as risk, hazards, vulnerability and exposure as well as literature about tourism destinations and the meaning and application of resilience within tourism studies. Doing so, we analyze the origin, meaning and use of these related concepts and look at how they have evolved over time and within different contexts (Wallerstein, 2009). Moreover, in the conceptualization and operationalization of resilience at destination level is analyzed. As outlined in the introduction, definitions of resilience are fuzzy and incoherent across scales and disciplines. To unravel the fuzziness, first, we set the baseline for the debate on destination resilience by tracing back origins, conceptualization and limitations of resilience research in two disciplinary traditions. As revealed from the literature, research on resilience from a socioecological systems and disaster risk (DR) perspective show to be most influential in a tourism context. The theoretical baseline developed across section 2 is therefore mainly based on insights from these two strands of research. Following the conceptual methodology, we proceed to summarize patterns and themes that form the theoretical baseline for the identification of central concepts in the context of destination resilience. Each concept entails different features, assumptions and roles that inform the overall understanding of the phenomenon of destination resilience. To enhance the readers understanding of the dynamic nature of the resilience concept paired with the complex characteristics of a destination system, we propose a model that combines the elements identified in the analysis. The model links concepts and their interrelations to provide a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon not in a causal but in an interpretative approach (Jabareen, 2009). Doing so, it acts as visualized representation of this study’s main theoretical concepts (Miles and Huberman, 2009). As described by Maxwell (2013) the elements of the visualized map are extracted from existing sources however the structure and overall coherence of the model is the contribution of the researcher. The visual illustration shows how the concepts identified from the literature are interconnected. In line with the conceptual research approach of this study, the model development took place based on the insights from literature on the topic of destination resilience which was consulted to identify relevant and related concepts and to determine interrelationships between them (van der Waldt, 2020). As opposed to engaging the available literature on the topic, the research centers around the relevant literature regarding the concepts identified (van der Waldt, 2020). Following this approach, the suitability and relevance of literature is prioritized over the endeavor to provide an all-encompassing review. Given the vast number of publications on resilience in the context of tourism, we do not make the claim to be exhaustive regarding all conceptual aspects. The literature has been critically examined to identify gaps and the meaning and evolution of key concepts, however, as the review is conceptually driven it more so centers on mapping different approaches to resilience.

The concept of resilience gained prominence in the 1970s in the field of ecology with its initial focus on emphasizing a system’s ability to return to equilibrium after a perturbation (Folke et al., 2010). Definitions of resilience evolved from the focus on “engineering resilience”, to a broader perspective that considers multiple stable states while maintaining functionality (Folke et al., 2010). The ecological definition of resilience emphasizes the adaptability of complex systems, contrasting with the maintenance of a steady-state seen in engineering systems (Adger, 2000). Further on, the integration of social dimensions led to the emergence of social-ecological resilience as a boundary object between natural and social sciences which explicitly incorporates adaptability and transformability, signifying the continuous change, adaptation and transformation of a system (Carpenter et al., 2012). During the course of this development, the concept of resilience has been adopted by various disciplines and research fields whose underlying paradigms led to diverse and sometimes contradictory understandings of the concept. When taking a closer look at resilience research from a disciplinary angle, two research traditions which appear relevant to destination resilience stand out: research on social-ecological systems (SES) and research on DR which conceptualize and apply the resilience concept quite differently:

SES research is a field within sustainability science that seeks to address pressing sustainability issues by understanding the complex interactions between social and ecological components (Biggs et al., 2022). SES research is characterized by its focus on the dynamic connections, interactions and interdependencies between people and nature (Heslinga et al., 2017; Reyers et al., 2022). The analysis of resilience in SES scholarship aims to address resilience as an emergent system property of a SES to cope with and respond to disturbances and change while continuing to adapt or transform (e.g. identifying tipping points or regime shifts) (Walker et al., 2004). In that understanding, resilience is often directed towards disturbances that cannot be identified, or risks that are novel, unforeseen or surprising (Carpenter et al., 2012; Folke et al., 2010). Previous research has identified a number of generic principles (also referred to as conditions, essentials or qualities) that aim to enhance the overall resilience of a SES (Biggs et al., 2012b; Preiser et al., 2018). Close commonalities between the outlined concepts can be identified in the tourism context including five recurring themes (e.g. Biggs et al., 2012a; Hartman, 2018; Orchiston et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2013): (1) diversity, variety and redundancy, (2) social networks, connectivity and partnerships, (3) reflexivity, information and awareness, (4) flexibility, innovation, creativity, adaptability and learning and (5) participation, cohesion, equity, inclusion and collective action. However, the application of general resilience in practical settings and the operationalization of these wide-ranging principles have been challenging (Sweetapple et al., 2022). While the so-called general resilience narrative has value in addressing risks on a broader scale, they may not provide concrete guidance for designing and implementing specific actions and strategic policies (Carpenter et al., 2012). This limitation hinders the translation of theoretical understanding into actionable measures. However, resilience analysis from a SES research tradition offers advantages in emphasizing the inseparability of people and nature and studying the complex dynamics of SES across multiple levels and scales and in overcoming the limitations of traditional disciplinary approaches that are often confined to a single level or scale (Biggs et al., 2022; Reyers et al., 2022).

In scholarship on DR on the other hand, resilience has been historically linked to the concept of risk (i.e. the potential for adverse impacts) and its components (hazards, vulnerability and exposure) (Keck and Sakdapolrak, 2013). DR research is a multidisciplinary field that studies the causes, consequences, and management options of hazards and risks. It seeks to understand the complex interactions between hazards, human activities and social systems, as well as to develop effective strategies to reduce risks and potential disasters by studying various aspects, including hazard assessment, vulnerability analysis and the underlying social, economic and environmental dimensions (Wisner et al., 2012). The focus of resilience in DR research is on the capacities or abilities of people, households or communities to proactively or reactively manage specific risks and is closely linked to vulnerability (Adger, 2000). The management of risk refers to actors’ ability to adapt, prevent, recover, prepare and respond when facing a risk. The precise relationship with vulnerability has been intensively discussed in the literature: While some scholars understand resilience as the flipside of vulnerability (Manyena, 2006; Wilson, 2012), others see resilience as a subcomponent of vulnerability (Turner, 2003), or compare it with adaptive capacity (Adger, 2000; Birkmann et al., 2013), while yet others perceive resilience and vulnerability as being separate but closely related concepts (Cutter et al., 2008). Resilience analysis in DR scholarship delves into understanding the factors and underlying root causes that make people vulnerable, exposed or resilient to hazardous events and processes in the first place. This perspective on so-called specified resilience clearly defines who or what should be resilient against what while acknowledging complex contexts and causes of risks. However, it has been criticized for being too narrow in its analysis, especially when dealing with novel risks and focusing predominantly on reactive capacities (Folke et al., 2010).

In tourism studies, research has predominantly adopted a general perspective on resilience conceptualizing resilience on different systemic levels and studying interactions within a SES (Amore et al., 2018; Biggs et al., 2012a; Hall et al., 2018, 2023; Heslinga et al., 2017; Prayag, 2018, 2023; Postma and Yeoman, 2021; Ruiz-Ballesteros, 2011). Besides the systemic approach to studying resilience, this line of research is often concerned with measuring systems’ equilibria, threshold limits, tipping points and overall susceptibility to change (Espiner and Becken, 2014; Prayag, 2023). Contrary to this perspective, there are also scholars from tourism studies that rather pick up on conceptual elements associated with DR scholarship such as vulnerability, exposure and adaptive capacity (Basurto-Cedeño and Pennington-Gray, 2016; Bethune et al., 2022; Cahyanto et al., 2021; Orchiston, 2013). Most prominently, the destination sustainability framework (DSF) (Calgaro et al., 2013) integrates resilience as adaptive capacity within the notion of vulnerability. Several follow-up studies build on the DSF focusing on different factors that influence destination vulnerability (Calgaro et al., 2014; Kennedy et al., 2020; Pyke et al., 2021; van der Veeken et al., 2016). Due to the diverse interpretations and applications of resilience, many tourism resilience studies fall short of clearly positioning their concepts in the overall academic resilience debate.

Within the academic discourse, resilience is a concept that elicits various interpretations, particularly in the context of destinations. However, a critical aspect that demands further exploration is how best to conceptualize destination resilience. This issue directs attention to the central question raised by Steve Carpenter et al. (2001, p. 777): “resilience of what and resilience to what?”. In addressing this fundamental inquiry, we begin by focusing on the latter component. Although the range of shocks or stressors that a destination may encounter is highly diverse, the overarching implication in the endeavor to build resilience is to avoid adverse impacts. In this context, we distinguish between different dimensions of adverse impacts for a tourism destination that include but are not restricted to impacts on human lives (i.e. safety, loss of lives and health), destination image (i.e. reputation and competitiveness), built environment and infrastructure, community wellbeing, economy (i.e. loss of income, loss of employment opportunities, worker migration to other sectors) and on environment (i.e. loss of natural attractions, environmental degradation and loss of resources) (Becken et al., 2019; Fabre et al., 2017; UNDRR, 2015). Now looking at the first part of the question, there is a relation to the notion that destinations seem to “lie at the heart of much thinking about tourism and resilience” (Hall et al., 2018, p. 104). Although the term destination resilience seems to be the answer to the question of the unit of analysis of the assessment, on closer examination it is not clear whose resilience is actually being studied. For resilience studies, specific boundaries of the scale of analysis must be made explicit (Carpenter et al., 2001; Quinlan et al., 2016) which is specifically relevant in the destination context. In the pursuit of contributing to the debate on destination resilience in this paper, we first need to address a critical question: what is a destination?

While tourism destinations are key concepts in tourism research and the debate over their conceptualization has evolved significantly, their definition is still subject to controversy (Jovicic, 2016; Pearce, 2014; Saraniemi and Kylänen, 2011). Early definitions of the term were characterized by their geographical focus, regarding destinations as spatial units with defined territorial boundaries (Davidson and Maitland, 1997). The geographical extension, however, remained subject to the interpretation of the observer comprising everything from a municipality up to a transnational area. Shortcomings of this approach became evident quickly, because social, economic and environmental problems occur independently of human-made boundaries and thus call for flexibility in the choice of spatial scale in the context of tourism planning and development (Fraser et al., 2006). This is why the “systemic approach” gained popularity during the mid-1990s, leading to a more holistic interpretation of the destination concept (Jovicic, 2016). Further on, destinations became conceptualized as networks and connected organizations from the public and private sector that are interrelated and connected through a web of social linkages (Baggio and Cooper, 2010; Nunkoo, 2017). This notion was further extended by recognizing destinations as complex adaptive systems (Baggio and Sainaghi, 2011; Postma and Yeoman, 2021) whose elements are related in a nonlinear and dynamic fashion that react to external and internal factors in an unpredictable manner (Jovicic, 2016). The system has a specific function and purpose, which in the context of tourism is to provide the tourism product and the multitude of elements in the tourism system are directly or indirectly related to each other. The systemic structure depends on its internal organization and the connections between the different actors and stakeholders. Recent approaches unite existing tourism destination conceptualization from different disciplinary backgrounds by developing frameworks that integrate economic, physical, geographical, marketing-oriented, customer-oriented and cultural aspects of a destination (Cooper and Hall, 2008; Pearce, 2014; Saraniemi and Kylänen, 2011).

Despite these common denominators, there is still room for interpretation in the context of destination resilience when answering the key question “who should be resilient?” It is easy to answer “all the components of the destination” but the beach will not protect itself from erosion nor will the estuaries protect themselves from sedimentation. Consequently, to assess destination resilience and to clarify whose resilience we are looking at, we first need to unpack the black box of destinations (Baghchi et al., 1998). The solution may be found in Prayag’s (2018, p. 134) assertion: “resilience of a destination is often a matter of the resilience of its constituents”. Amore et al. (2018, p. 240) extend this notion by stating that “the resilience of individuals, organizations and other stakeholders, as well as resilience of subsystems, will be key determinants of the resilience of the system as a whole, together with the structure of the system“. In line with Baggio and Cooper (2010, p. 1759) who state, “stakeholders are the people who matter to a system”, human actors and their functional interrelationships on the individual, organizational and societal level play a pivotal role in tourism destinations which enables the flow of people, money and resources that are required for the functioning of the tourism system in the first place.

With the rise of the resilience concept as an effective way to address risk, calls for building resilience by operationalizing the concept at destination level and by providing tourism actors with actionable measures, emerged. Imitating successful practices to operationalize the normative concept of sustainability through numerical assessment, similar concepts of measurement surfaced in the context of resilience. Similar to the practice of sustainability assessment, using resilience as an analytical concept mostly refers to the employment of quantitative standardized methods and indicators with fixed numerical values, which serve as proxies for resilience (Quinlan et al., 2016). Most studies draw on a set of sociodemographic, economic, institutional, physical or environmental parameters rooted in capitals and assets, when it comes to the development of said indicators (Cai et al., 2018). However, these approaches for conceptualizing resilience in a destination context often remain one-dimensional by only using scorecards (Basurto-Cedeño and Pennington-Gray, 2016), resilience factors (Della Corte et al., 2021; Filimonau and Coteau, 2020; Pyke et al., 2021) or indicators (Brown et al., 2019; Orchiston et al., 2016; Malone and Brenkert, 2008). Thus, it is advisable to approach resilience measurements in tourism studies with care (Hall et al., 2023; Prayag, 2023). The basic assumption often remains the same: resilience is defined as a destination’s fixed trait, property or attribute which can be statically measured in a particular place at a particular point in time ignoring the dynamic nature of resilience.

Reducing resilience to these asset-based indicators in the pursuing of generating a measurable outcome inevitably results in simplifying the resilience concept to a mere numerical value that is incapable of answering the question: resilience of what to what? This numerical interpretation of resilience gives insufficient attention to change and complexity making it incompatible with the processual and dynamic perspective on resilience (Amore et al., 2018; Pyke et al., 2021; Quinlan et al., 2016). Walker and Salt (2012, p. 67) stress that “resilience is not a single number or a result” but always contextual depending on the system under study and the purpose of the investigation. Hence, there is a need to move beyond the narrow emphasis of traditional metrics and static indicators (Bristow and Healy, 2014). Likewise, a common pitfall in the context of resilience frameworks is the idea to find a multipurpose approach. Prayag (2019, p. 57) even describes the one-size-fits-all approach to building and maintaining resilience as “futile”. This measuring approach inevitably leads to the formulation of desired (and measurable) outcomes and the development of general recommendations that enable nonresilient destinations to become more resilient (Rogers, 2013). However, this logic of benchmarking implies that the unit under investigation “the tourism destination” behaves as uniform, homogeneous agent with a shared instrumental rationality leaving no room for highly divergent aims and priorities that might exist within or in a destination (Darnhofer et al., 2016; Hartmann, 2011; Pain and Levine, 2012).

Thus, a significant number of scholars from various disciplines emphasize that the focus must lie on actors and their agency in the context of adversities (Béné et al., 2012; Bohle et al., 2009; Bristow and Healy, 2014; Lorenz, 2013; Obrist, 2016; Posch et al., 2020). An agency-based perspective on resilience recognizes that resilience is not a fixed property or stationary trait, but the ability and willingness of people to take certain actions in the context of disturbances and risks (Posch et al., 2020). Despite efforts in different disciplines to refocus on people’s agency in the resilience debate, the majority of tourism studies continue to prioritize conventional static capitals- and asset-based approaches, while only few emphasize the levels of individuals and the dynamic interplay of agency and structure structure-agency interface (Hartman, 2023). A perspective of resilience as agency implies that tourism destinations consist most and foremost of human actors that are able and willing to take proactive and reactive actions. These actors must engage into a participatory resilience building process by taking actions that simultaneously strengthen generic principles and respond to specific risks.

Building on the theoretical baselines outlined in section 3, we propose a destination resilience model that combines the resultant model implications from Tables 1–3. The model not only links elements central to the concepts of destinations and risk but also acknowledges and combines the two narratives of resilience (Figure 1).

The contextual frame in which the model is situated is the tourism destination system. Due to the dynamic risk environment, complexity and change, tourism destinations are exposed and vulnerable to a variety of hazards that may result in adverse impacts for the destination concerning impacts on human lives, destination image, built environment and infrastructure, community wellbeing, economy and environment. The risks environment includes are sudden shocks and slow ongoing stressors and are influenced by different risk drivers such as global climate change, poverty or inequality. To prevent the occurrence of said adverse impacts, building resilience is proposed as an effective way to address risks. The backdrop of framing resilience as agency to take action, necessarily results in an actor-centered perspective. The core of the model therefore depicts an actor-centered and agency-based perspective on destination resilience. The current literature that specifically addresses destination resilience often disregards the systemic and adaptive perspective on the tourism destinations. We can only pay sufficient attention to changes in the system, if we recognize the human actors embedded in it. In a destination context, this means that the system is influenced by characteristics of its individual members, the tourism actors and systemic or global characteristics. This framing of destinations informs the choice of method for assessing resilience: destinations should not be seen as a black box but instead their constituents should be investigated, e.g. by studying the individuals in the destination system and the global destination system characteristics, including the environment. As illustrated in section 3.3., tourism actors are the carriers of any resilient action as their ability and willingness to act in the context of disturbances and risks determines the resilience level of the destination system as a whole. Resilience should not be recognized as a fixed trait or property but rather as the ability of actors to take actions. This ability is largely shaped by enabling environments in the destinations that are conducive to the actors’ agency. The actors’ agency is an emergent property of the collaboration within the destination system.

Picking up on the distinction between generic and specified resilience respectively rooted in socioecological systems research and research on DR, the proposed framework presents principles that allows for building resilience on a broader basis as well as specific risk management practices to proactively and reactively respond to risk. Starting with the generic approach to building resilience, it is worth taking a step back and looking at the types of risks that are intended to be mitigated through generic resilience principles (see Table 1). Some risks are hard to define because causal links between different elements of risk (hazard, exposure and vulnerability) or secondary effects are hardly distinguishable. These risks are often systemic – characterized by their high complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity – or novel, thus, provoking wide-ranging, transnational and cross-sectoral impacts for a system (Renn et al., 2020). The complexity of these risks makes it difficult to address them with traditional risk management approaches. Consequently, a focus on general resilience narratives proves to be more fruitful in this context. As outlined in section 3.1., the general resilience narrative builds on generic principles and conditions that are less context dependent and thus universally applicable (Biggs et al., 2012b). The principles identified from the literature are taken up in the inner circle of the resilience model, surrounding the tourism actors. As these principles are normative, they can only guide the development of strategies for different actors in the tourism system but must be translated into operational action individually. This translation process yet again emphasizes the importance of actors’ agency in the context of adversities. The meaning of each principle is strongly dependent on the actor and the risk to be managed. To illustrate this mechanism, we provide an example for the first principle. What does “being diverse and redundant” mean for a tour operator? This can entail addressing diverse target groups, catering to different source markets, spreading offers over the season or building multiple streams of income.

Contrary to the rational underpinning generic resilience, in some cases, risk elements (hazards, vulnerabilities and exposure) can be clearly designated and causal relationships can be established. Consequently, entry points to build destination resilience are primarily found in specified narratives of resilience research. These conventional risks are best addressed with risk management practices (see outer circle in dark gray) that help to prevent risks (e.g. coastal reinforcement, trail marking, economic incentives), adapt to and reduce the impacts of existing risks (e.g. land use planning, building codes, early warning systems and awareness or education programs), prepare for risks (e.g. planning for emergency shelter sites, evacuation routes, emergency energy and water sources), or recover from disasters (e.g. emergency funds).

Despite the different points of departure and theoretical focuses of SES and DR, an integration of specified and general resilience narratives can contribute to the understanding of destination resilience. We argue that the integration of both narratives into daily tourism practice might be a fruitful addition to the discussion on destination resilience, allowing for the ability to address known risks immediately and effectively without losing sight of novel and systemic risks.

This contribution set out to gain a better understanding of the conceptualization of destination resilience. Through a conceptually driven literature review, it becomes evident that resilience within the destination context has been conceptualized differently across various research traditions leading to an incoherent usage of key terms and diverse applications depending on the scale of analysis and the discipline in which it is studied. We review the origin, meaning and use of resilience and map out central conceptual elements associated with epistemologies from different research traditions that are then combined in a new model. Our model underscores the importance of framing resilience as an agency of tourism actors in a destination and challenges the notion of resilience as a static or measurable trait. The innovative link of conceptual elements from SES and disaster risk reduction (DRR) scholarship illustrated through general and specified resilience narratives demonstrates how a combined narrative can foster the ability to respond to a particular risk while also mitigating systemic and unforeseen risks.

Nevertheless, before highlighting the contributions of our research, we must acknowledge that conceptual research is subject to certain limitations. The conceptual model was developed through the exploration of existing concepts from the literature and their interpretive structuring in a new model. Accordingly, the research is not based on empirical data to support the proposed construct. We acknowledge that conceptual research is subjective in nature and researchers’ personal biases in the interpretation of theoretical baselines and concepts and their reflections in the model cannot be ruled out. To validate the constructs proposed in this article we have develop operational strategies from the conceptual model introduced herein that allow for the assessment of destination resilience. This proposed assessment methodology was empirically tested in three case studies in an affiliated research project (see Eckert and Posch, n.y.). The cross-reference between these two studies therefore allows for conclusions about the generalizability of the model and provides insights if the model holds true in specific destination contexts or under varying conditions. Lastly, we acknowledge that resilience is a highly dynamic and steadily evolving concept and that our conceptual research can only provide insights that reflect the past debate on the topic. Nevertheless, we want to highlight the advantages of employing a conceptual research approach for structuring a multidisciplinary debate and for laying the groundwork for further exploration. On that note, the presented reflections about the conceptual background of resilience and the resultant “Destination Resilience Model” conceptually advances the resilience debate in tourism studies by:

1. Tracing narratives for the conceptualization and operationalization of destination resilience in different research disciplines and their underlying paradigms

2. Identifying the value of an actor-centered perspective

3. Reflecting the dynamic nature of resilience and the (mis)use of measurement approaches in tourism destinations;

4. Presenting a conceptual model that integrates resilience concepts from different epistemologies in two disciplinary traditions to offer analytical leverage for better understanding destination resilience;

By providing conceptual clarity on the key terms and elements associated with resilience, we demonstrate how the integration of generic and specified narratives of resilience can enhance the comprehension of destination resilience, accounting for its complexities and ever-evolving dynamics. In the face of an increasing prevalence of complex and interconnected risks, understanding resilience will become a key skill for destination researchers and managers in the future as it enables them to effectively respond to future changes and navigate uncertainties (Hall et al., 2023). By adopting an actor-centered and agency-oriented perspective, our model focuses on how destinations can be equipped with capacities to take actions to better cope with adversity and develop strategic risk management approaches, particularly in the face of climate change-related challenges. Our research supports the shift from static approaches and reactive risk management towards holistic resilience thinking that allows to strategically addressing a wide range of risks.

Building upon our framework, future research endeavors could focus on deriving an assessment methodology that aligns with an agency-based and actor-oriented understanding of resilience. To bridge the gap between conceptualization and operationalization, assessment methodologies that are applicable to a broad spectrum of spatial scales, destination types and risk profiles thereby breaking down the concept of resilience to smaller scale realities are needed. Recognizing the inherent challenges in measuring resilience, such an approach should be contextual, participatory and dynamic, accounting for the adaptive and complex nature of the concept. Additionally, further investigation is necessary to conduct a detailed review of the generic resilience principles and their operationalization. In this vein, future studies could explore the integration of strategies to manage systemic risks alongside conventional risks, as part of resilience-building actions.

Our contribution advances the discourse surrounding destination resilience by critically examining the unit and scope of analysis in destination resilience studies and questioning prevailing approaches that seek to measure the resilience of specific destinations. Instead, we argue for a greater emphasis on understanding the factors that promote resilient action. After all, the central goal is to foster a comprehensive understanding that encompasses the multifaceted nature of resilience by creating awareness, ownership and responsibilities to enhance destination resilience in the long run instead of reducing resilience to a mere number.

Eva Posch and Elena Eckert are equal contributors to this work and designated as co-first authors.

Funding: This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) under Grant 20.1001.5-012.00.