Co-flourishing: Intertwining community resilience and tourism development in destination communities

This paper contributes to the understanding of community resilience in tourism development in the destination community. Accordingly, we propose a 'co-flourishing' framework integrating community resilience and tourism development by mobilising six types of community capital - human, social, natural, physical, financial, and psychological - which strengthen community capacity during disturbances or crises. We argue that the existing understanding of the tourism system tends to be resource-driven and market-oriented. Such approaches neglect the needs of the destination community, which should have adequate resources for its goal of providing a good life for its members. We first review the six forms of community capital and their implications for community resilience, and argue that tourism development has a negative impact on various kinds of community capital - particularly in destination communities. Hence, we propose a co-flourishing framework which advocates a paradigm change in tourism development to cater to the capital needs of the community. The proposed framework highlights practical long-term policy suggestions for tourism development and planning. We identify further necessary research is needed to accumulate empirical evidence to better apply the co-flourishing framework in various development scenarios in both developing and developed economies.

Automated summary

This paper explores community resilience in tourism development in destination communities and proposes a co-flourishing framework to enhance community capacity during disturbances or crises. The current resource-driven and market-oriented understanding of the tourism system neglects the needs of destination communities, highlighting the importance of paradigm change to cater to community capital needs. Additional research is needed to apply the co-flourishing framework effectively in various development scenarios in both developing and developed economies.