Conceptualising Destination Resilience from a Multi-Level Perspective

The concept of resilience has gained momentum in current tourism research, yet there are still flaws and discrepancies between the many notions applied in the field. These limitations are further evident when we focus on tourist destinations. The aim of this paper is to advance the conceptualization of destination resilience through a multi-level-perspective (MLP) that frames landscape, regime, niche and actors as integrated elements of the tourism system. The resulting framework encompasses ecological, socio-ecological, socio-political, socio-economic and socio-technological dimensions reflecting the embeddedness of resilience among heterogeneous and potentially complementary destination stakeholders. It is argued that the use of the MLP advances the understanding of tourism destination planning, particularly in contexts coping with gradual as well as drastic changes due to both demand fluctuations and supply-side disturbances.